The Charter of the Cities
"I will go," he said, "and mingle with the people."
He passed swiftly up a street in the neighbourhood of Notting Hill, when suddenly he felt a hard object driven into his waistcoat. He paused, put up a single eye-glass, and beheld a boy with a wooden sword and a paper cocked hat, wearing that expression of awed satisfaction with which a child contemplates his work when he has hit some one very hard. The King gazed thoughtfully for some time at his assailant, and slowly took a note-book from his breast-pocket.
"I have a few notes," he said, "for my dying speech;" and he turned over the leaves. "Dying speech for political assassination; ditto, if by former friend—h'm, h'm. Dying speech for death at hands of injured husband (repentant). Dying speech for same (cynical). I am not quite sure which meets the present. . . . "
"I'm the King of the Castle," said the boy, truculently, and very pleased with nothing in particular.
The King was a kind-hearted man, and very fond of children, like all people who are fond of the ridiculous.
"Infant," he said, "I'm glad you are so
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