Owen Oliver

“ Can I have a monkey?"
He stuck to the monkey right up to the end of the performance, though Sam, the Sagacious Spaniel, made him waver.
"Of course," he said, as they walked home, "a dog is cleverer, but a monkey is more uncommon. That's where it is, dad. ... I think a dog is cleverer than anybody understands—even you, or mother."
"It is never safe," the King observed, "to say that your mother doesn't understand anything. Look how she understood that those children would be longing to go to the circus! "
"Ye-es," said the Prince Royal, "but she didn't understand about me. ”

“ Nevertheless, the fourth turn ousted the Equestrian Queen from the first place in his affections.
"She's all very well for a woman, dad," he said. "But the Educated Pig. Did you see him when I called out 'D'? Put his foot right on it!"
"Ye-es," said the King, with a sudden chuckle. It seemed to him that the pig walked on all the letters, and that the clown picked up the right one as soon as he reached it. Which reminded him of the way that the Prime Minister formed his policy.
"Ripping!" the Prince Royal pronounced. "I had no idea they could do it. Couldn't I have a little pig? ”

“ How do they do it? King pulls a long face on his stage, and laughs off it. Clown laughs on the stage, and has his solemn time off. Can't have it all ways. Ain't enough laugh in a man to do it. A man as laughs by profession won't laugh for amusement. No recreation in it. I tell you what I know. ... Thank you, sir. I don't mind if I do. ... Yes, I know."
"How do you know?" the Prince asked curiously.
"Because," the dismal man said, "I'm the clown! Time to go and change, too."
The Prince Royal gasped, and looked at the little man with reverence. ”

“ I wish you'd—what do they call it, dad?—abbeykate, or something like that?"
"Abdicate," the King suggested.
"That's it. Then we could keep a circus! You could be ring-master, and I'd be the clown, and we could teach Dots"—he meant Her Royal Highness Princess Seraphina—"to jump through hoops. She's jolly quick, if she is a bit tubby. I suppose mother could ride without a saddle, couldn't she? She rides jolly well with one. Isn't she good-looking?"
"Your mother," the King said, "is the handsomest queen that——"
"Oh," cried the Prince Royal, "mother! ”

“ He debouched from the bookcase, took the King in the rear, pulled the royal chair round on its swivel, and informed the King that he was a prisoner.
"If I'd had a gun, I'd have shot you easy, gov!" he stated, getting on the royal knee. "Your sentry is no good."
"It seems that my son isn't too good, either," the King observed. He stroked the boy's fair hair.
"Seven's too early to go to bed," the Prince Royal explained. "Mother forgets I'm not a baby now. You're going to talk to her about it, you know. What are you doing, dad?" ”

“ Both got to play on the stage, haven't they?"
"True," said the King thoughtfully. "True!"
"And both got to live, and to live you've got to balance things. Balance things, you see. Laugh one time and cry another, so as to even up. Can't have all work and no play, can you, mister? ”

“ You should have heard Lady Honoria scream!"
"I wish I had!" the Prince Royal said regretfully. "You're a jolly good sport, mother. I—I—think, now you've got to understand white mice, you'd soon get used to a m-mon——"
He fell suddenly asleep.
"To what?" the Queen asked.
"He wants a monkey," the King explained. "Boys are—boys."
"So are men," said the Queen, "sometimes! I came to look at you both, and when I found you'd both gone—I guessed. Dol"—that was what she called the King—"we must get one of the maids take 'Dots' on the quiet to-morrow night. Girls are—boys—too! ... ”