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Reprinted Pieces by Charles Dickens
page 76 of 310 (24%)
which led (His Majesty said) to the presentation of your orders at
Theatre doors, by individuals who were 'too shakery' to derive
intellectual profit from the entertainments, and who brought a
scandal on you. Finally, His Majesty said that you could hardly
put too little in a poster; what you wanted, was, two or three good
catch-lines for the eye to rest on - then, leave it alone - and
there you were!

These are the minutes of my conversation with His Majesty, as I
noted them down shortly afterwards. I am not aware that I have
been betrayed into any alteration or suppression. The manner of
the King was frank in the extreme; and he seemed to me to avoid, at
once that slight tendency to repetition which may have been
observed in the conversation of His Majesty King George the Third,
and - that slight under-current of egotism which the curious
observer may perhaps detect in the conversation of Napoleon
Bonaparte.

I must do the King the justice to say that it was I, and not he,
who closed the dialogue. At this juncture, I became the subject of
a remarkable optical delusion; the legs of my stool appeared to me
to double up; the car to spin round and round with great violence;
and a mist to arise between myself and His Majesty. In addition to
these sensations, I felt extremely unwell. I refer these
unpleasant effects, either to the paste with which the posters were
affixed to the van: which may have contained some small portion of
arsenic; or, to the printer's ink, which may have contained some
equally deleterious ingredient. Of this, I cannot be sure. I am
only sure that I was not affected, either by the smoke, or the rum-
and-water. I was assisted out of the vehicle, in a state of mind
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