wife placed to her credit, or to his. To this, it is said, Flagler, on
the ground that Harden-Hickey was not a man of business, while
he was, objected, and urged that he was, and that if it remained in
his hands the money would be better invested and better expended.
It was the refusal of Flagler to intrust Harden-Hickey with the care
of his wife's money that caused the breach between them.

As I have said, you cannot judge Harden-Hickey as you would a
contemporary. With the people among whom he was thrown, his
ideas were entirely out of joint. He should have lived in the days of
"The Three Musketeers." People who looked upon him as working
for his own hand entirely misunderstood him. He was absolutely
honest, and as absolutely without a sense of humor. To him, to pay
taxes, to pay grocers' bills, to depend for protection upon a
policeman, was intolerable. He lived in a world of his own
imagining. And one day, in order to make his imaginings real, and
to escape from his father-in-law's unromantic world of Standard
Oil and Florida hotels, in a proclamation to the powers he
announced himself as King James the First of the Principality of
Trinidad.

The proclamation failed to create a world crisis. Several of the
powers recognized his principality and his title; but, as a rule,
people laughed, wondered, and forgot. That the daughter of John
Flagler was to rule the new principality gave it a "news interest,"
and for a few Sundays in the supplements she was hailed as the
"American Queen."

When upon the subject of the new kingdom Flagler himself was
interviewed, he showed an open mind.