"Change of fiddlesticks!" answered the King; "I consider it a most
dangerous precedent to let a sovereign be too long out of his own
country. It makes people imagine they can do just as well without him!"

The Queen looked at her husband with shrewd and kindly furtiveness. She
had a funny little suspicion that the ministry did at times greatly
prefer his absence to his presence: and that "change of fiddlesticks"
was really their underlying motive. About this monarch she herself had
no illusions: he was a dear, but he fussed; and when once he began
fussing he required an enormous amount of explanation and persuasion.
Even she, therefore, was not at all averse to letting him go on these
State outings in which she need not always accompany him. They gave him
something fresh to think about, and to her a time of leisure when she
need not pretend to think about anything she did not understand.

"Of course," went on the King, "it makes good copy for the newspapers.
The press is powerful, and governments are obliged now-a-days to throw
in a certain amount of spectacle to keep it in a good temper. We are
sent off to perform somewhere, and after us come the penny-a-liner and
the cinematograph."

"Oh! my dear, much more than a penny-a-liner," corrected the Queen; "I
heard of one correspondent who makes £5,000 a year. And think how good
for trade! Besides, do not we get the benefit of it?"

"Benefit!" exclaimed the King irritably, "where is the benefit to us of
journalists who describe State functions as though they were jewelers'
touts and dressmakers rolled into one? The vulgarity of people's present
notion of what makes monarchy impressive is appalling. Listen to this,