THE KING WHO
WENT ON STRIKE
BY
PEARSON CHOATE
Author of "Men Limited: An Impertinence"
"And those things do best please me
That befal preposterously."
Puck
"A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Act. III. Scene II.
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1924
Copyright, 1924
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC.
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
Is it not strange so few Kings abdicate; and none yet heard of hasbeen known to commit suicide? Fritz the First, of Prussia, alone triedit, and they cut the rope."
"The French Revolution, A History."
Part I. Book VII. Chapter XI
Thomas Carlyle
THE KING WHO WENT ON STRIKE
CHAPTER I
he King leant against the stone balustrade, which runs round theroof of Buckingham Palace, and looked about him. All around him,above him, and below him, the night was ablaze with a myriad lights.Loyal Londoners, in accordance with their custom, were closing theirCoronation celebrations with illuminations, with fireworks, and withgood-humoured horse-play in the crowded streets. In spite of gloomypredictions to the contrary, the proverbial Coronation weather of thelast day or two had not failed. A radiant June day had given place toa wonderful June night. Here, on the palace roof, high up above thetumult and the shouting the night air was cool and fragrant. The Kingrested his elbows on the broad top of the carved stone balustrade. Hewas very weary. But he was glad to be out in the open air once again.And he was gladder still, at last, to be alone—
"A tall, fair, goodlooking young man, still in the early twenties,with an open, almost boyish face": "A young man of athletic build,clean-shaven, and very like his dead brother, the Prince, but lacking,perhaps, something of the Prince's personal distinction, and charm":"Thick, fair, curly hair, blue eyes, and a happy, smiling mouth":"A typical young English naval officer, with an eager, boyish face,unclouded, as yet, by any shadow of his high destiny"—it was inphrases such as these that the descriptive writers in the newspapershad described, more or less adequately, the new King's outwardappearance. What he was inwardly, what the inner man thought, and felt,and suffered, was not within their province, or their knowledge. At themoment, his outward appearance was completed by an easy fitting, black,smoking jacket, plain evening dress trousers, and a pair of shabbydancing pumps, into which he had changed immediately after the statebanquet, which had been the final ordeal of his long and exhaustingofficial day. It was characteristic of the inner man, about whom solittle was known, that he should have been thus impatient to throwoff the gorgeous uniform, and the many unearned decorations, which thebanquet had necessitated. It was characteristic of him, too, that heshould be bareheaded, now, and drawing absently at a pipe, which he hadforgotten to fill—
All the crowded events of th