they said kings should not see them.

"I will see them," he said with a smile which was beautiful and strange.
"I go now, on foot, and unattended except for my friend the Ancient One.
Let the ball go on."

He strode through the glittering throng with the gray-clad Ancient One
at his side. He still wore his crown upon his head because he wished his
people to know that their King had come to them.

Through dark and loathsome places they went, through narrow streets and
back alleys and courts, where people scurried away like rats as the
gutter children had done in the daytime. King Amor could not have seen
them but that he had brought with him a bright lantern and held it up in
the air above his high head. The light shining upon his beautiful face
and his crown made him look more than ever like a young god and giant,
and the people cowered terrified before him, asking each other what such
a King would do to wretches like themselves. But just a few very little
children smiled at him because he was so young and bright and splendid.
No one in the black holes and corners could understand why a King should
come walking among them on the night of his coronation day. Most of them
thought that the next morning he would order them all to be killed, and
their houses burned, because he would only think of them as vermin.

Once as he passed through a dark court a madman darted out in his path
shaking his fist.

"We hate you!" he cried out. "We hate you!"

The dwellers in the court gasped with terror, wondering what would