Majesty's pardon, but you have always requested that I should
speak plainly."

The king laughed; he enjoyed this frank friend. There was an
essence of truth and sincerity in all he said that encouraged
confidence.

"Indeed, I shall be sorry to have you go tomorrow," he said, "for
I believe if you stayed here long enough you would truly make a
king of me. Be frank, my friend, be always frank; for it is only
on the base of frankness that true friendship can rear itself."

"You are only forty-eight," said the Englishman; "you are young."

"Ah, my friend," replied the king with a tinge of sadness, "it
is not the years that age us; it is how we live them. In the
last four years I have lived ten. To-day I feel so very old! I
am weary of being a king. I am weary of being weary, and for
such there is no remedy. Truly I was not cut from the pattern of
kings; no, no. I am handier with a book than with a scepter; I'd
liever be a man than a puppet, and a puppet I am--a figurehead
on the prow of the ship, but I do not guide it. Who care for me
save those who have their ends to gain? None, save the archbishop,
who yet dreams of making a king of me. And these are not my people
who surround me; when I die, small care. I shall have left in the
passing scarce a finger mark in the dust of time."

"Ah, Sire, if only you would be cold, unfriendly, avaricious. Be
stone and rule with a rod of iron. Make the people fear you,
since they refuse to love you; be stone."