Volume VII - Modernist Magazines Project

56 The Queen's Pleasurewhen the summons first reached him. "We'll have to travelin state, with a full suite ; and the whole shot must be paid fromour private purse. There's no expecting a penny for such apurpose from the Soviete."(C I hope," exclaimed the Queen, looking up from a letter shewas writing, " I hope you don't for a moment intend to go ? "" We must go," answered the King. " There's no getting outof it."" Nonsense ! " said she. " We'll send a representative."" I only wish we could," sighed the King. " But unfortunatelythis is an occasion when etiquette requires that we should attendin person.""Oh, bother etiquette," said she. " Etiquette was made forslaves. We'll send your Cousin Peter. One must find someuse for one's Cousin Peters."" Yes ; but this is a business, alas, in which one's CousinPeter won't go down. I'm very sorry to say we'll have to attendin person."" Nonsense ! " she repeated. " Attend in person ! How can' you think of such a thing ? We'd be bored and fatigued to death.It will be unspeakable. Nothing but dull, stodgy, suffocatingGerman pomposity and bad taste. Oh, je m'y connais ! Redcloth, and military bands, and interminable banquets, and noise,and confusion, and speeches (oh, the speeches !), until you're readyto drop. And besides, we'd be herded with a crowd of ninth-rateprincelings and petty dukes, who smell of beer and cabbage andbrilliantine. We'd be relegated to the fifth or sixth rank, behindpeople who are all of them really our inferiors. Do you suppose Imean to let myself be patronised by a lot of stupid Hohenzollernsand Gratzhoffens ? No, indeed ! You can send your cousinPeter.""Ah,