things. The interview was purely ceremonial. It had no relation
to the passports we were asking from his government to visit the
Italian front, though this request had made the visit necessary.
Several times there were pauses in the conversation--dead stops
in the talk, which court etiquette required the Duke to repair. We
didn't worry about them, for always he began to repair these gaps
in the talk rather bashfully but kindly, and always the subject
was impersonal and of indifferent interest. He made no sign that
the interview was over, but we knew, as well as though a gong had
struck, when to go. So we went, and it seemed to me that the Duke
put more real enthusiasm into his good-bye than into his welcome.
It was half-past five. He had been at work since eight. And perhaps
it was fancy, but there seemed to be rising into his bland Italian
eye a determination to knock off and take a half holiday.

We noticed that his desk was clean, as clean as General Pershing's
or Major Murphy's in Paris, or President Wilson's in Washington.
Then it came to us that the king's job, after all, is a desk job.
The king who used to go around ruling with a sceptre has given
place to a gentleman in a business suit who probably rings for his
stenographer and dictates in part as follows: "Yours of even date
received and contents noted; in reply will say!" We carried away
an impression that the lot of royalty, like the policeman's lot,
"is not a happy one." Talking it all over, we decided that in the
modern world there is really any amount more fun running a newspaper
than being a king, and for the size of the town, much more chance
of getting things done. It did not fall to me because of an illness,
but a few days later it fell to Henry and Medill to see a real king
at Udine. He was living in a cottage a few miles out of town in a
quiet little grove that protected him from airplanes. Now Henry's