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lently to and fro, while he rained blows downward and sideways upon the devoted imaginary head.
"Take that!" said Norris, as he drew a long breath after his exertions. "Take that for the present, and something else and better will come soon."
Meantime the king had flung himself into the first easy chair he came to, and uttered three dismal groans.
"I fear,” said the queen, "your Majesty is indisposed.”
“You fear? you fear?” yelled the king. "Look at us and then answer yourself."
"Your Majesty?”
"We are worse than indisposed. We are murdered. It is regicide."
"What is the matter, sir?"
"The matter? the matter? Everything is the matter. Treason is the matter. Plots, plans, and assassinations are the matters."
"We grieve, sir—"
"Peace! Tash!"
The queen sat quietly down, and looked as placid as possible.
“We will go to Hanover," growled the king. "Tomorrow morning we will go to Hanover, and while we are gone, madam, we trust that the Duchess of Kendal will receive every attention at your hands."
There was the faintest possible tinge of colour in the face of the queen, but it passed away in a moment.
"Your Majesty's commands," she said, "have ever met with my most respectful attention."
"Bah! Bo!"
"And if that is all your Majesty has to say, as the hour is getting late—”
"We understand," growled the king. "You want to get, rid of us. Ha! ha! But we are not going so soon. Is it true, think you? Is there such a thing as woman's wit, and does it succeed sometimes in tracing events to causes when man's sterner judgment fails him utterly?"
This question was half put to the queen, and half as a kind of soliloquy, but she answered it.
"I shall only be too happy to be of any service to your Majesty."
“Ah!''
"And if you will only kindly inform me what it is that—that your Majesty wishes—"
"Ah!"
The queen was silent.
The king quietly laid the walking cane upon the nearest table, and then, peering suspiciously at the queen through his half-closed eyes, he spoke again.
"We will tell you, and it will be better than well if you can devise some mode by, which some most mysterious circumstances can be cleared up to our satisfaction."
The queen slightly inclined her head, as though to signify how willing, at all events, she was to try.
"Understand, then," added the king, in a croaking voice, "understand, then, that we have been surrounded by traitors, and that, with the assistance of Providence, we disposed of one at Kew, and of another in the court yard here of St. James's. Do you hear?”
“Certainly, sir."
"Well, well, well. Time was that when you killed a man there he lay, stiff, stark, solid, inert, and troublesome—a mass of carrion which you could neither feed vour dogs with nor leavo to rot—rot in the summer air. But now—now, madam, these dead men disappear, exhale, vanish into air, and no one can tell me whither they have gone."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Ah! indeed, madam. I want your woman's wit now."
"But, sir—"
"But me no buts. Where are my dead men? I must have them. I will have them."
"Your Majesty at once alarms and astonishes—"
"Tash!"
"Nay, sir."
"Tash! I say again. One things suggests another. Listen. There was a sentinel, he held his post in the Colour Court of St. James's, and shortly after one of these arch-traitors had met his most deserved doom there came forth from one of the private doors of the palace three persons."
"Three persons?"
"We said three persons—three tall strong men."
"Oh! then, sir, they cannot concern me. I have none but the women of my chamber and the ladies of my court about me."
“Indeed! Now, what if that party of three consisted of two women and of one man? What if one of those three persons carried away one of my dead bodies?”
The alarm and apprehension of the queen were increasing each moment.
She was afraid to trust herself to speak.
She only shook her head in a decidedly negative manner.
"Tash!" cried the king.
"Who accuses you?”
There are some things possible, madam, and some impossible. Among the impossible ones is that you should dream for a single moment of thwarting us and our purposes.
"I have no intention," began the queen meekly.
"Tash! Enough. There needs no protestations; but, as we say, one thing suggests another. We want to know what has become of two dead bodies which have mysteriously disappeared. The key to the enigma, could we find it, might unlock both the mysteries."
"I scarcely comprehend, sir—"
"Bah! Of course you do not. But since one of those dead men was brought into this portion of the palace—"
The queen gave a slight start.
"Ah!"
"I thought I heard a noise, sir, on the back stairs."
The king put both his hands behind his ears, and assumed an attitude of listening that was wonderfully grotesque.
He looked like a modern personification of one of those hideous old satyrs with which the strange my thology of the Greeks peopled the woodland haunts of their rocky isles.
"It is nothing. But, as we say, one of my dead men was brought in here. I do not accuse— Tash! that would be absurd. Madam, understand me. I do not say you know, but I want you to try and find out, as a woman may among women, the heart and kernel of this mystery."
The queen could not help drawing a long breath of relief.
She had been terrified at the idea that the king was about to order a minute search throughout the whole of that portion of the palace. She felt quite happy at being rescued from such a catastrophe.
"Your Majesty may depend that I will do my very best to discover everything your Majesty pleases, and as the hour is late, and I have still my devotions to—"
"Bo! stuff! We have something more to say."
The king looked down on the floor, and his countenance seemed to darken, and his small ferret eyes to dart forth malignant rays, as he seemed to be arranging some special villany—doubtless he would call it policy in his own mind.
The queen could scarcely forbear from trembling, for only once before had she seen those looks on the face of the king, and they had then preceded such a
storm of vindictive rage that she wished never to look upon its like again.
It was something quite startling to her, then, to hear
the low and scarcely articulate tones in which he spoke.
"There is more woman's wit wanted. We—we—ugh! ugh! ugh!—that is, we, in our compassion—for are we not the father of our people?—we—we—we—we—"
The king paused. Nothing could be more evident than that he had something terrible to say, the actual utterance of which, in its bore and true significance, even he shrank from with a kind of natural horror.
The queen trembled more and more.
What could ho be about to say?
What to propose ?
He spoke again.
"We have duties—we have compassions—we are at once tender and strong. There is a young girl, almost a child. She—she—she was in care, or keeping, or something of first one and then the other of the arch- traitors we spoke of. We want her—we want her. We do not war with the weak, the childlike, and the destitute. We want her, that we may be merciful, great, and compassionate, as becomes a king—a king. We want her—ugh! ugh! ugh!—we want her—we—we want her. Madam, we want her."
"Sir?"
"Well?"
" Your Majesty was speaking of—of—"
"Of a young girl, almost a child. Well, what then? She is hidden—hidden from us, either in Whitehall or St. James's. Find her, find her. There is work, madam, for your woman's wit."
"Your Majesty wishes, then, to—to—"
"To what?"
"Provide for this—"
"Ha! ha! Have we not said so?—provide for her ? Yes. Provide for her—ugh! ugh! ugh! —provide—provide for life."
The queen shuddered, and shrank further back.
The king projected his face forward, and stretched his long thin meagre hands across the table.
"It is necessary, madam, that this girl be found. Employ what tools or instruments yuu will, or go yourself about the task, for I must have her."
"Her name?" faltered the queen.
"Bertha."
The queen felt faint.
"You comprehend me, madam? You comprehend me? If it cost half a year's revenues of this kingdom, I must have my two dead men and mv one living girl. Accomplish this for us, and then ask what you will. You want to go to Mechlenburg—I know it—and you don't want to come back again. Ugh! ugh! ugh!"
The queen began to cry.
"Tash! We hate tears. Find for us our two dead men, and place in our fatherly care the young girl we speak of, and you may go—go at once. Ugh! ugh! ugh!"
There was a slight tap now at one of the doors of the queen's cabinet, and the king glanced towards it suspiciously, as he made a movement of his legs which would enable him, if necessary, to screen himself behind a chair on the smallest possible notice.

THREE CUPS OF COFFEE

The tap at the door of the royal cabinet was repeated.
It was not etiquette for either the king or the queen to cry out, "Come in!" but it was a generally under stood thing that if the page in waiting gave three taps, and then found that the door would open to his hand, he was at liberty to enter and make any necessary announcement.
Those announcements were rare and long between.
It was only actual members of the royal family who could thus, without some prearrangement, intrude upon the royal privacy.
And now came the third tap. It was not the page of the back stairs (Mr. Osborn) who was demanding admission, but one of the other queen's pages on duty, who approached the private cabinet from quite another direction.
Then the page entered, and, with a low bow, was about to say something to the queen, when he nearly stumbled with surprise at the sight of the king.
It was then quite sufficiently evident that the page considered what he had to say would be distasteful to the king, for he tried to back out of the royal presence without saying it at all.
"Halt! Stop!"
The page paused and bowed low again.
There was no resource but to utter the message, whatever it was.
The queen shook with an undefined fear, and probably the placid Caroline had never endured in all her life such exquisite torment as during that interview with the king, who at any moment, if the whim should seize him, might, by walking six paces into the oratory, find himself in the midst of some of the very people to discover whom he was calling upon her to exercise her woman's wit.
The page spoke in a rather confused tone.
"May it please your Majesty, his Royal Highness Prince Frederick—"
"Ah!"
The king sprang to his feet.
"His Royal Highness the Prince Frederick presents his respectful duty to her Majesty, and requests the favour of a few minutes' audience."
The king darted an angry look at the queen.
"Indeed, indeed," she cried, "I did not expect him."
"Tash! What matters? We will go by the back stairs, or step into the oratory.
The queen could not suppress a scream.
The king turned fiercely towards her, and it would then appear that Caroline, simple as she looked, had more woman's wit than people gave her credit for.
She put on an expression of physical suffering, and sank back into her chair. "That sprain again!"
"What sprain?"
"On the stone staircase this morning, as I mentioned to you, sir."
"Bah! It will soon be well. We will step into the oratory, and perhaps—"
The queen screamed again.
His most gracious Majesty King George the Second was not at that moment exactly aware that two swords were half drawn from their scabbards in that oratory, and that if he had even ventured to cross its threshold he would have found himself a prisoner.
But that was not to be.
The king paused.
He placed his finger sagaciously by the side of his nose.
"Humph! Ugh! ugh! ugh!"
The king evidently had an idea.
What could it be?
He had been long at variance with his amiable son, Prince Frederick.
Was the father's heart relenting?—for even kings have father's hearts—and did he think this a favour able opportunity of making peace with his son and successor?
Surely, yes. It must be so.
What other motive could his most gracious Majesty have in using the words he did?
"Let him come. We will see him. Ugh! ugh! ugh! The family dissensions of monarchs set bad examples to their subjects. Let him come. We will see our son Frederick, even if it be for the last time. Ugh! ugh! ugh!"
The queen turned paler and weaker.
She was beginning to feel herself quite unequal to the task of sustaining that anxious scene much longer.
But how was she to escape from it without risking bringing about the very catastrophe the dread of which was making her sick and ill.
No.
She could do nothing.
She must wait—wait like some one tied to a rack of mental torment from which there was no escape.
"Yes—ugh! ugh!—we will see Frederick. Why not? And we will look upon this visit, late as it is, to you, madam, his mother, as some indication that lie repeats of the wickedness of his ways, and yearns for peace and family affection. Ugh!"