THE WORLD SET FREE
were unusually thorough. I was brought up in the purest court the world has ever seen. . . . Alertly pure. . . . So I read books, Firmin, and went about asking questions. The thing was bound to happen to one of us sooner or later. Perhaps, too, very likely I'm not vicious. I don't think I am."
He reflected. "No," he said.
Firmin cleared his throat. "I don't think you are, sir," he said. "You prefer———"
He stopped short. He had been going to say "talking." He substituted "ideas."
"That world of royalty!" the king went on. "In a little while no one will understand it any more. It will become a riddle. . . .
"Among other things, it was a world of perpetual best clothes. Everything was in its best clothes for us, and usually wearing bunting. With a cinema watching to see we took it properly. If you are a king, Firmin, and you go and look at a regiment, it instantly stops whatever it is doing, changes into full uniform and presents arms. When my august parents went in a train the coal in the tender used to be whitened. It did, Firmin, and if coal had been white instead of black I have no doubt the authorities would have blackened it. That was the spirit of our treatment. People were always walking about with their faces
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