MEN I HAVE PAINTED
artist, the King's valet came in and asked what dress or uniform I would require, and if I expected the King to change. I said an Admiral's dress-coat and hat would do, and that I would only ask the King to wear the hat. He went away and returned with a coat, a hat and a form; on the latter he buttoned up the coat, arranged its fold and decorations, admonishing me to be particular about the stars and their places on the coat, because the Royal Family were very punctilious about this most important matter. He told me how often artists made mistakes in the details of dress, and pointed several out to me in large portraits hanging on the walls. He had charge of the King's Wardrobe, and had made a study of the appropriate dress or uniform for each occasion or function. After he had left me, the tall footmen came to take away the trays. After another interval some one came to say the King was arriving. The prolonged waiting had begun to affect my nerves, and it was now with a certain tremulousness that I watched the great door.
I began to wonder exactly how His Majesty would come, whether alone or accompanied, when the two doors opened very quietly, a small middle-aged man in a simple black dress stood in the middle of the doorway and said in a quiet tone, "The King." Stepping to one side with a slight inclination of his body to allow a still smaller man, in a plain blue serge suit to pass, I was confronted with the King, who, advancing briskly towards me, with a slight smile and outstretched hand, asked what he could do for me. As he took my hand I said, "Please, your Majesty, to put on that admiral's hat, and stand upon the throne in any easy position." Stepping up on the throne, he took the hat from the chair, and slapping it on his head in
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