"In the quieter streets of Paris, especially in the neighbourhood
of the Ministry of Fine Arts, you may sometimes meet a depressed,
anxious-looking man, who, if you pass him the time of day, will
answer you with a slight Luxemburgian accent. He nurses the
illusion that he is one of the lost arms of the Venus de Milo, and
hopes that the French Government may be persuaded to buy him. On
all other subjects I believe he is tolerably sane."




HERMANN THE IRASCIBLE--A STORY OF THE GREAT WEEP



It was in the second decade of the twentieth century, after the
Great Plague had devastated England, that Hermann the Irascible,
nicknamed also the Wise, sat on the British throne. The Mortal
Sickness had swept away the entire Royal Family, unto the third
and fourth generations, and thus it came to pass that Hermann the
Fourteenth of Saxe-Drachsen-Wachtelstein, who had stood thirtieth
in the order of succession, found himself one day ruler of the
British dominions within and beyond the seas. He was one of the
unexpected things that happen in politics, and he happened with
great thoroughness. In many ways he was the most progressive
monarch who had sat on an important throne; before people knew
where they were, they were somewhere else. Even his Ministers,
progressive though they were by tradition, found it difficult to
keep pace with his legislative suggestions.