The Clicking of Cuthbert

bracing himself solidly on widely-parted feet. His pose was an exact

reproduction of the one in which the Court sculptor had depicted him

when working on the life-size statue ("Our Athletic King") which stood

in the principal square of the city; but it did not impress the

stranger. He uttered a discordant laugh.

"Ye puir gonuph!" he cried, "whitkin' o' a staunce is that?"

The King was hurt. Hitherto the attitude had been generally admired.

"It's the way I always stand when killing lions," he said. "'In killing

lions,'" he added, quoting from the well-known treatise of Nimrod, the

recognized text-book on the sport, "'the weight at the top of the swing

should be evenly balanced on both feet.'"

"Ah, weel, ye're no killing lions the noo. Ye're gowfing."

A sudden humility descended upon the King. He felt, as so many men were

to feel in similar circumstances in ages to come, as though he were a

child looking eagerly for guidance to an all-wise master--a child,

moreover, handicapped by water on the brain, feet three sizes too large

for him, and hands consisting mainly of thumbs.

"O thou of noble ancestors and agreeable disposition!" he said, humbly.

"Teach me the true way."

"Use the interlocking grup and keep the staunce a wee bit open and slow

back, and dinna press or sway the heid and keep yer e'e on the ba'."

"My which on the what?" said the King, bewildered.

"I fancy, your Majesty," hazarded the Vizier, "that he is respectfully

suggesting that your serene graciousness should deign to keep your eye

on the ball."

"Oh, ah!" said the King.

The first golf lesson ever seen in the kingdom of Oom had begun.

       *       *       *       *       *

Up on the terrace, meanwhile, in the little group of courtiers and

officials, a whispered consultation was in progress. Officially, the

King's unfortunate love affair was supposed to be a strict secret. But

you know how it is. These things get about. The Grand Vizier tells the

Lord High Chamberlain; the Lord High Chamberlain whispers it in

confidence to the Supreme Hereditary Custodian of the Royal Pet Dog;

the Supreme Hereditary Custodian hands it on to the Exalted Overseer of

the King's Wardrobe on the understanding that it is to go no farther;

and, before you know where you are, the varlets and scurvy knaves are

gossiping about it in the kitchens, and the Society journalists have

started to carve it out on bricks for the next issue of Palace

Prattlings.

"The long and short of it is," said the Exalted Overseer of the King's

Wardrobe, "we must cheer him up."

There was a murmur of approval. In those days of easy executions it was

no light matter that a monarch should be a prey to gloom.

"But how?" queried the Lord High Chamberlain.

"I know," said the Supreme Hereditary Custodian of the Royal Pet Dog.

"Try him with the minstrels."

"Here! Why us?" protested the leader of the minstrels.

"Don't be silly!" said the Lord High Chamberlain. "It's for your good

just as much as ours. He was asking only last night why he never got

any music nowadays. He told me to find out whether you supposed he paid

you simply to eat and sleep, because if so he knew what to do about

it."

"Oh, in that case!" The leader of the minstrels started nervously.

Collecting his assistants and tip-toeing down the garden, he took up

his stand a few feet in Merolchazzar's rear, just as that much-enduring

monarch, after twenty-five futile attempts, was once more addressing

his stone.

Lyric writers in those days had not reached the supreme pitch of

excellence which has been produced by modern musical comedy. The art

was in its infancy then, and the best the minstrels could do was

this--and they did it just as Merolchazzar, raising the hoe with

painful care, reached the top of his swing and started down:

    "Oh, tune the string and let us sing

    Our godlike, great, and glorious King!

      He's a bear! He's a bear! He's a bear!"

There were sixteen more verses, touching on their ruler's prowess in

the realms of sport and war, but they were not destined to be sung on

that circuit. King Merolchazzar jumped like a stung bullock, lifted his

head, and missed the globe for the twenty-sixth time. He spun round on

the minstrels, who were working pluckily through their song of praise:

    "Oh, may his triumphs never cease!

      He has the strength of ten!

    First in war, first in peace,

      First in the hearts of his countrymen."

"Get out!" roared the King.

"Your Majesty?" quavered the leader of the minstrels.

"Make a noise like an egg and beat it!" (Again one finds the

chronicler's idiom impossible to reproduce in modern speech, and must

be content with a literal translation.) "By the bones of my ancestors,

it's a little hard! By the beard of the sacred goat, it's tough! What

in the name of Belus and Hec do you mean, you yowling misfits, by

starting that sort of stuff when a man's swinging? I was just shaping

to hit it right that time when you butted in, you----"

The minstrels melted away. The bearded man patted the fermenting

monarch paternally on the shoulder.

"Ma mannie," he said, "ye may no' be a gowfer yet, but hoots! ye're