“From North Kensington?” said the King, rising graciously. “What news does he bring from that land of high hills and fair women? He is welcome.”
The herald advanced into the room, and was immediately followed by twelve guards clad in purple, who were followed by an attendant bearing the banner of the Eagle, who was followed by another attendant bearing the keys of the city upon a cushion, who was followed by Mr. Buck in a great hurry. When the King saw his strong animal face and steady eyes, he knew that he was in the presence of a great man of business, and consciously braced himself.
“Well, well,” he said, cheerily coming down two or three steps from a dais, and striking his hands lightly together, “I am glad to see you. Never mind, never mind. Ceremony is not everything.”
“I don’t understand your Majesty,” said the Provost stolidly.
“Never mind, never mind,” said the King, gaily. “A knowledge of Courts is by no means an unmixed merit; you will do it next time, no doubt.”
The man of business looked at him sulkily from under his black brows and said again without show of civility:
“I don’t follow you.”
“Well, well,” replied the King, good-naturedly, “if you ask me I don’t mind telling you, not because I myself attach any importance to these forms in comparison with the Honest Heart. But it is usual...it is usual...that is all, for a man when entering the presence of Royalty to lie down on his back on the floor and elevating his feet towards heaven (as the source of Royal power) to say three times ‘Monarchical institutions improve the manners.’ But there, there-such pomp is far less truly dignified than your simple kindliness.”
The Provost’s face was red with anger and he maintained silence.
“And now,” said the King, lightly, and with the exasperating air of a man softening a snub; “what delightful weather we are having! You must find your official robes warm, my Lord. I designed them for your own snow-bound land.”
“They’re as hot as hell,” said Buck, briefly. “I came here on business.”
“Right,” said the King, nodding a great number of times with quite unmeaning solemnity; “right, right, right. Business, as the sad glad old Persian said, is business. Be punctual. Rise early. Point the pen to the shoulder. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not whence you come nor why. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not when you go nor where.”
The Provost pulled a number of papers from his pocket and savagely flapped them open.
“Your Majesty may have heard,” he began, sarcastically, “of Hammersmith and a thing called a road. We have been at work ten years buying property and getting compulsory powers and fixing compensation and squaring vested interests, and now at the very end, the thing is stopped by a fool. Old Prout, who was Provost of Notting Hill, was a business man, and we dealt with him quite satisfactorily. But he’s dead, and the cursed lot has fallen to a young man named Wayne, who’s up to some game that’s perfectly incomprehensible to me. We offer him a better price than any one ever dreamt of, but he won’t let the road go through. And his Council seem to be backing him up. It’s midsummer madness.”
The King, who was rather inattentively engaged in drawing the Provost’s nose with his finger on the window-pane, heard the last two words.
“What a perfect phrase that is,” he said. “‘Midsummer madness!’”
“The chief point is,” continued Buck, doggedly, “that the only part that is really in question is one dirty little street...Pump Street...a street with nothing in it but a public house and a penny toy-shop, and that sort of thing. All the respectable people of Notting Hill have accepted our compensation. But the ineffable Wayne sticks out over Pump Street. Says he’s Provost of Notting Hill. He’s only Provost of Pump Street.”
“A good thought,” replied Auberon. “I like the idea of a Provost of Pump Street. Why not let him alone?”
“And drop the whole scheme!” cried out Buck, with a burst of brutal spirit. “I’ll be damned if we do. No. I’m for sending in workmen to pull down without more ado.”
“Strike for the purple Eagle,” cried the King, hot with historical associations.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Buck, losing his temper altogether. “If your Majesty would spend less time in insulting respectable people with your silly coats-of-arms, and more time over the business of the nation...”
The King’s brow wrinkled thoughtfully.
“The situation is not bad,” he said; “the haughty burgher defying the King in his own Palace. The burgher’s head should be thrown back and the right arm extended; the left may be lifted towards Heaven, but that I leave to your private religious sentiment. I have sunk back in this chair, stricken with baffled fury. Now again, please.”
Buck’s mouth opened like a dog’s, but before he could speak another herald appeared at the door.
“The Lord High Provost of Bayswater,” he said, “desires an audience.”
“Admit him,” said Auberon. “This is a jolly day.”
The halberdiers of Bayswater wore a prevailing uniform of green, and the banner which was borne after them was emblazoned with a green bay-wreath on a silver ground, which the King, in the course of his researches into a bottle of champagne, had discovered to be the quaint old punning cognisance of the city of Bayswater.
“It is a fit symbol,” said the King, “your immortal bay-wreath. Fulham may seek for wealth, and Kensington for art, but when did the men of Bayswater care for anything but glory?”
Immediately behind the banner, and almost completely hidden by it, came the Provost of the city, clad in splendid robes of green and silver with white fur and crowned with bay. He was an anxious little man with red whiskers, originally the owner of a small sweet-stuff shop.
“Our cousin of Bayswater,” said the King, with delight; “what can we get for you?” The King was heard also distinctly to mutter, “Cold beef, cold ’am, cold chicken,” his voice dying into silence.
“I came to see your Majesty,” said the Provost of Bayswater, whose name was Wilson, “about that Pump Street affair.”
“I have just been explaining the situation to his Majesty,” said Buck, curtly, but recovering his civility. “I am not sure, however, whether his Majesty knows how much the matter affects you also.”
“It affects both of us, yer see, yer Majesty, as this scheme was started for the benefit of the ’ole neighbourhood. So Mr. Buck and me we put our ’eads together...”
The King clasped his hands.
“Perfect,” he cried in ecstacy. “Your heads together! I can see it! Can’t you do it now? Oh, do do it now.”
A smothered sound of amusement appeared to come from the halberdiers, but Mr. Wilson looked merely bewildered, and Mr. Buck merely diabolical.
“I suppose,” he began, bitterly, but the King stopped him with a gesture of listening.
“Hush,” he said, “I think I hear some one else coming. I seem to hear another herald, a herald whose boots creak.”
As he spoke another voice cried from the doorway:
“The Lord High Provost of South Kensington desires an audience.”
“The Lord High Provost of South Kensington!” cried the King. “Why, that is my old friend James Barker! What does he want, I wonder? If the tender memories of friendship have not grown misty, I fancy he wants something for himself, probably money. How are you, James?”
Mr. James Barker, whose guard was attired in a splendid blue, and whose blue banner bore three gold birds singing, rushed, in his blue and gold robes, into the room. Despite the absurdity of all the dresses, it was worth noticing that he carried his better than the rest, though he loathed it as much as any of them. He was a gentleman, and a very handsome man, and could not help unconsciously wearing even his preposterous robe as it should be worn. He spoke quickly, but with the slight initial hesitation he always showed in addressing the King, due to suppressing an impulse to address his old acquaintance in the old way.