Volume VII - Modernist Magazines Project

By Henry Harland 33elbows — at his big, wildly-littered writing-table, producing"copy," .... to the accompaniment of endless cigarettes andendless glasses of tea. (Monterossan cigarettes are excellent, andMonterossan tea is always served in glasses.) The King hasliterary aspirations, and—like Frederick the Great—coaxes hismuse in French. You will occasionally see a conte of his inthe Nouvelle Revue^ signed by the artful pseudonym, TheodoreMontrouge.At one o'clock to-day I am to present myself at the Palace, andto be received by their Majesties in informal audience ; and thenI am to have the honour of lunching with them. If I were onthe point of lunching with any other royal family in Europe. . . .But, thank goodness, I'm not; and I needn't pursue the distressingspeculation. Queen Aneli and King Theodore are—fora multitude of reasons—a Queen and King apart.You see, when he began life, Theodore IV was simply PrinceTheodore Pavelovitch, the younger son of a nephew of thereigning Basile, Paul III ; and nobody dimly dreamed thathe would ever ascend the throne. So he went to Paris, and" made his studies " in the Latin Quarter, like any commoner.In those days—as, I dare say, it still is in these—the LatinQuarter was crowded with students from the far south-east.Servians, Roumanians, Monterossans, grew, as it were, on everybush ; we even had a sprinkling of Bulgarians and Montenegrins ;and those of them who were not (more or less vaguely) princes,you could have numbered on your fingers. And, anyhow, in thatdemocratic and self-sufficient seat of learning, titles count forlittle, and foreign countries are a matter of consummate ignoranceand jaunty unconcern. The Duke of Plaza-Toro, should heventure in the classical BouF Miche, would have to cede thepas