Richard Connell

“ It’s the fashion in these times to pretend that a prince is just like any other man in the country, and not a bit better. That’s rot, of course, and no one knows it better than the people. If I am like all the rest of them, why do they stand in the rain for hours to see me whisk by in a limousine? ”

“ I’m not going to be a stuffed uniform any longer. If a dummy can be a prince I don’t want to be. Let them have a dummy in my place. I’m going to be a man.”
He addressed these words to the emptiness of the royal chamber, and his tone was steeped in the vinegar of bitter realization. Prince Ernest was working himself up to quite a pinch of resolution, when the chamber door opened and in came the king. Behind him wabbled the vast bulk and incandescent nose of the Emperor of Zabonia. ”

“ It was the waxen figure of a fair-haired, smiling young man in polo costume.
“Why, it’s I!” exclaimed the prince, who, mumps or no mumps, surprised or not, always expressed himself correctly.
“They do make those dummies more perfectly all the time,” remarked the king, who was admiringly examining the figure. “That nose is exactly like Ernie’s, now isn’t it?”
The prince lay staring at his effigy.
“I don’t see——” he began as distinctly as the mumps would let him.
“Oh, you will,” said the king. “Duffus, did Madame Hassler make much of a fuss?” ”

“ To hear some of these radical chaps talk one would think any fellow could be a prince. Really, you know, that’s nothing more than twaddle. If they tried it they’d soon find that it takes generations of royal blood behind one to give one that—well, that authority, that—so to speak—presence. ”

“ The crowds took up the cry.
“Long life to Prince Ernest! He never turns his back on his people!”
“And jolly good reason,” said the prince, “for they’d see the strings Duffus is pulling to make the thing salute.”
The brow of the prince was no longer bland, no longer was it free from lines of disillusionment. He was thinking of what he had seen.
His voice was tragic, as he said, “So this is what it means to be a prince! A dummy serves just as well! A dummy; the sort of thing they have in cheap ready-made clothing stores—Very Nobby! Newest and Niftiest Cut! Take Me Home for Fourteen Goobecs. ”

“ This eventuality would be highly inopportune for Prince Ernest’s country, for Zabonia had just perfected a cannon whose shell carried a hundred miles and then bounced back to be recharged. War must be averted. The Emperor of Zabonia must be received with every show of cordiality, must be accorded every honor, must be given not the slightest shadow of a pretext for taking umbrage. The emperor must carry away the impression that Prince Ernest’s country loved Zabonia with a surpassing love ”

“ You could consider yourself jolly lucky if you made eight hundred goobecs a year. If you were a young doctor you’d be sitting around with your hands in your empty pockets praying for an epidemic. If you were a young business man you’d be in a terrible stew about your overhead or underfoot or whatever it is business men get into a stew about. Instead of having eleven motor cars, not counting roadsters, you’d be fortunate to have your bus fare. Now I’m a doting father, Ernie, but even I can see that you are no intellectual colossus. ”

“ He sees them bawling their beery cheers first about some rather ordinary human being like yourself, for example, Ernie, and then he sees them cheering one of your silly uniforms stuffed with wax. The only way a king who pretends to be civilized can regard his subjects is as dupes. ”

“ I was scheduled to go to some dismal provincial town and knight some pestilential bounder of a mayor. I’d been performing a lot of royal chores, including the coronation mumbo-jumbo, and I was a bit fed up. The more I thought of going to that town the more bored I grew. ”

“ Indeed, mumps at a time like this was nothing short of a calamity, for on the morrow His Very Serene Highness the Emperor of Zabonia was to pay an official visit to the prince’s country. Fifty million people held their breath and tremulously awaited the result. Would there be war? Everybody knew that the answer depended on the emperor’s visit. ”

“ Alcohol is no respecter of royalty. In the morning I perceived that if I tried to knight the fellow I’d probably decapitate him. Here was a pretty kettle of whitebait. I was at my wit’s end when Lord Crockinghorse, my secretary, bobbed up with an idea. He’d had it on ice for some time, it appeared. He produced a whiskery blighter who opened oysters in a fried-fish shop ”