I beg your
Majesty's pardon, but you have always requested that I should
speak plainly."
The king laughed; he enjoyed this frank friend. There was an
essence of truth and sincerity in all he said that encouraged
confidence.
"Indeed, I shall be sorry to have you go tomorrow," he said, "for
I believe if you stayed here long enough you would truly make a
king of me. Be frank, my friend, be always frank; for it is only
on the base of frankness that true friendship can rear itself."
"You are only forty-eight," said the Englishman; "you are young."
"Ah, my friend," replied the king with a tinge of sadness, "it
is not the years that age us; it is how we live them. In the
last four years I have lived ten. To-day I feel so very old! I
am weary of being a king. I am weary of being weary, and for
such there is no remedy. Truly I was not cut from the pattern of
kings; no, no. I am handier with a book than with a scepter; I'd
liever be a man than a puppet, and a puppet I am--a figurehead
on the prow of the ship, but I do not guide it. Who care for me
save those who have their ends to gain? None, save the archbishop,
who yet dreams of making a king of me.
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