" 'Well no matter,' he said. 'You've haccepted the money and in law that's a principle that shows your hintent to make a hagreement.'

" 'What are you talking about?'

" 'Your own good, sir, your own good. You built that house in Putney in the year of our Lord 17 hand 86. This is 17 hand 92. That's six years, Prince George.'

" 'Say what you're talking about or I'll kill you.'

" 'That wouldn't be law, sir.'

"I went for his throat.

" 'Law, sir,' he gasped. 'Common law, sir. Common law marriage.'

"I took my hands from about his neck. 'Common law marriage?'

"Because there is no law finally, there are only arrangements. They had used the Settlement Act to arrange my bachelorhood, a sort of biding, b.u.t.toned spinstership of standby, wait-list eligibility. And repossessed our household goods to arrange, or so I thought at the time, simple, hobbled, clip-wing, rub-and-bottleneck let and hindrance.

" 'Oh no, sir,' the solicitor explained later, 'that would have been vitchious. The law his not vitchious. We done that for the presumption. The law wants a hagreement hand a presumption. What reasonable men might hinfer has to da troof of your and Mrs. Fitz's situation based on probable reasoning hin da absence huv, or prior to, hactual proof or disproof. If we'd let you 'ang on to the furniture, all them pricey, pretty penny harticles and hinventory what you'd put togevver, dere might be some reasonable man or huvver oo'd 'ave taken it into 'is 'ead that you'd hactually hintended to make ha 'ome togevver hafter the fashion of a 'usband and wife.'

" 'You left the bedchamber undisturbed.'

" 'We did, sir. Hafter the fashion of a man wif a maid.'

"Maria's check had been written to neutralize one more presumption. The solicitor explained that since I had paid for the house and lived with her in it I had seemed to imply that I regarded her as my wife. If they had not acted before the sabbatical year, our arrangement, under English common law, might have been considered a bona fide marriage. By getting her to pay for the house...

" 'I'll tear up the check,' I said, and did so, in a dozen dozen bits and pieces before the solicitor's eyes.

" 'Oh, sir,' he said sadly, 'Hi'm afraid dat were not wise. You see, sir, you're a debtor, and, hunder law, debtors are wiffout certain rights. Dey may not muterlate monies due deir creditors. 'Hif a penny come deir way dat penny must be paid.' Dat his de law, sir, so n.o.ble has your action was, befitting a sweet and n.o.ble prince like yourself, may I say, sir, it was not wise? Dough Hi 'ope an' pray dat if Hi 'ad de honor, sir, to be hin your position Hi would 'ave done de same--if Hi was has hig'orant of de law as you are, Prince.'

"So we were undivorced and unannulled for the third time.

"We continued to meet for a time, but both of us could see that what all official England had contrived to turn into an affair was finally and effectively doomed. For one thing, now that Maria owned the house she wanted to redecorate the bedroom.

"Are you too uncomfortable on that bare floor? The remainder is quickly told.

"Now I had reason to borrow again. I had not realized how much money I had not not been spending while Maria had been taking up so much of my time. Unattached, I began to resume some of my old pursuits. I was gambling again. There were fine new race horses to buy for my neglected stables. My appet.i.tes became again as grand as they'd been in my fledgling good time Charlie days. My wardrobe once more took on its old princely significance. And there was Brighton. There'd always been Brighton of course, but now I had begun once again to host the magnificent feasts and b.a.l.l.s that had so distracted me when I was younger, affairs which for the most part Maria and I had attended as guests during the period of our closest alliance. So there were debts. And reason enough to seek out a.s.sistance. been spending while Maria had been taking up so much of my time. Unattached, I began to resume some of my old pursuits. I was gambling again. There were fine new race horses to buy for my neglected stables. My appet.i.tes became again as grand as they'd been in my fledgling good time Charlie days. My wardrobe once more took on its old princely significance. And there was Brighton. There'd always been Brighton of course, but now I had begun once again to host the magnificent feasts and b.a.l.l.s that had so distracted me when I was younger, affairs which for the most part Maria and I had attended as guests during the period of our closest alliance. So there were debts. And reason enough to seek out a.s.sistance.

" 'There's that girl in Italy,' the Chancellor of the Exchequer said.

" 'His cousin?' the Lord Privy Seal said.

" 'Caroline,' said the solicitor.

"This would have been thirty years ago. The marriage was contracted and I got my money.

" 'They're forcing me to marry a woman I cannot care for.'

" 'It doesn't matter,' Maria said. 'It's death Catholics recognize, not divorce.'

" 'Don't you see?' I told the ministers. 'You've made me a bigamist.'

" 'You're Prince huv Wales, sir,' the solicitor said. 'Take has many mistresses has pleases you.'

" 'Caroline's the mistress,' I muttered.

" 'Queen Caroline his your consort, sir,' the solicitor said. 'When she comes to term England will 'ave han heir.'

"Heiress he should have said. Princess Charlotte was born the following year. I asked the queen to taste her milk, which otherwise would have just gone begging anyway. She quite refused. It couldn't have been very good milk.

" 'One thing,' I asked Maria when Caroline returned to Rome the year the Princess was born. 'What pressures did they apply? Did they threaten the Catholics? How did they get you to do it?'

"'Write the check?'

" 'Yes.'

" 'That solicitor explained it. It had been a prince's house. The home of the man who would be King of England. He pointed out what a good investment it was.'

" 'Oh Maria,' I cried.

" 'Oh George,' she said, 'it's divorce Catholics don't recognize, not reality.'

"This would have been almost twenty-nine years ago. The Young Pretender would have been dead eight years by this time. Did you say something, Mills? No? I thought you said something. Stuart eight years gone. Still, she would not have been entirely lonely in Italy, would she? Would she, Mills?

"Now what's all this about some d.a.m.ned squire's letter you claim to carry about with you under your blouse?!"

Which was when the man who could claim-for himself and for everyone in his family who had come before-never to have signed a neighbor's pet.i.tion or written a letter to the editor or raised the mildest embarra.s.sing question in public, let alone seen his name in the papers or done anything at all to make anyone nervous, produced from his very person, as the King of Great Britain, Ireland and Hanover warily watched, a doc.u.ment, character reference, personality sketch, which at once testified to his, Mills's, rude ambitions and to his squire's ("squire" because the man was merely a modestly prosperous small freeholder in Mills's district, some younger son of some younger family) cheerful disdain of, and sniffy scorn for, George Mills and George Mills's curious goals. The letter was not a hoax. (The man to whom it was addressed was actually known to the writer, and had actually lived in London, though now, three years dead, was no longer in a position to do anything for the young aspirant. And anyway, the directions he had given Mills, though careful and precise, were quite inaccurate, based both upon a lightly liquored memory and a flaw peculiar to the writer which caused him, whenever he was in the capital-occasions rare enough to strike him as as occasions-not only to become overly excited but to lose, if not occasions-not only to become overly excited but to lose, if not all all sense of direction, at least that part of it which oriented him as to the side of the river he actually stood on at any given moment. Here was the fluky fortuity: that he had somehow managed to describe to Mills, even providing him with a hand-drawn map, which not only replicated the area to which George had come-with the exception of the house itself which was considerably smaller and in a different style than the one he'd described, a discrepancy George, who understood him, put down to the squire's sense of his own importance-but which was correct in all particulars save this: that the place George wanted was on the other side of the river in Fulham and not on this side in Putney.) sense of direction, at least that part of it which oriented him as to the side of the river he actually stood on at any given moment. Here was the fluky fortuity: that he had somehow managed to describe to Mills, even providing him with a hand-drawn map, which not only replicated the area to which George had come-with the exception of the house itself which was considerably smaller and in a different style than the one he'd described, a discrepancy George, who understood him, put down to the squire's sense of his own importance-but which was correct in all particulars save this: that the place George wanted was on the other side of the river in Fulham and not on this side in Putney.) So the letter was no hoax. George Mills, fearing one, had even tampered the crude seal and read it, understanding well enough its heavy sarcasm and the dubious light in which he was portrayed, but putting it in this this light, figuring it light, figuring it this this way: way: His sort don't mean my sort harm. They're afraid. As they might be afraid of Vandals or Visigoths. As they might be afraid of trained bears doing comic turns on the high street. They've heard things. Stuff about rough ways, muck about manners. They fear for their game, for their gardens and daughters. They mis...o...b.. our religion, and put it about our condition is our character. They think we drink too much and dance makes us crazy.

His jokes are just nervous. All to the good in the end. Serving my purpose. 'Cause he don't mean me harm, not real real harm. One toff to another. harm. One toff to another.

Now the King will read it. Who to the fellow what wrote it is like me to some dog dead in the road. He'll He'll know. And discount the jokes and mark down the leg pull, all that lively pokebanter, all that scoff-merry and scoldb.u.t.t. know. And discount the jokes and mark down the leg pull, all that lively pokebanter, all that scoff-merry and scoldb.u.t.t. He'll He'll know. He's a king. know. He's a king.

King George IV took the greasy letter his subject handed him and, when he saw to whom it was addressed, began to read the letter of introduction as if it were some doc.u.ment intercepted by agents and delivered by urgent and pressing couriers.

He read:

Forgive if you can my blatant impertinence in addressing you in this way about a matter of absolutely no importance and of no small irrelevance, it being the very rule of scientific displacement that that which is of no weight, which is no thing, no thing, saving of course our souls, which at all events are, if not by the laws of G.o.d then, to our shame, to our shame, at the very indiscreet least by the practices of men, more than we are inconvenienced to believe is good for us, "matters" of substance delayed, due bills to which, through the best grace of that same Divine Agency, accrue no interest, compound or even simple, though admittedly such "small" matters being the exception saving of course our souls, which at all events are, if not by the laws of G.o.d then, to our shame, to our shame, at the very indiscreet least by the practices of men, more than we are inconvenienced to believe is good for us, "matters" of substance delayed, due bills to which, through the best grace of that same Divine Agency, accrue no interest, compound or even simple, though admittedly such "small" matters being the exception-the exception, exception, nota bene- nota bene-while that to which I now direct your offhand attention still partic.i.p.ates in that aforementioned phylum or category relating to the antichronistic, metachronous and just plain out of date, and distracts in almost inverse mathematical degree to the extraneous pressures it puts upon us and has, for weightiness, no more power to signal fish than a sinker of soap bubble.

The d.a.m.ned thing's in code, the King thought. And read on.

Thus the stone in our shoe. Thus idle, vagrant worries which turn us from all true and dutiful concerns to peripheral speculation, random and curious as sudden unexampled messages from the villagers, their puny command-performance performances, shoddy b.a.l.l.s, recitals, b.u.mpkin dramatic entertainments and mystery plays, all those abrupt summonses at which our attendance is owed more to custom than obligation. Thus, in brief, all subtly finessed attentions to the self. Welcome enough, and n.o.ble enough too, Laird knows, when such attentions are diverted to G.o.d and Country, but disconcerting as a fly on your face when all that's at stake are the caterwaulings of silly young boys whose voices have not yet changed. Thus then this.

Laird? the King thought. Laird Laird knows? knows?

Which I cannot continue without first making certain courteous and proper, albeit, I do a.s.sure you, good fellow, entirely sincere inquiries regarding the healths and happinesses of your lovely lady and your remarkable bairn. It has of course been some time since I have been in your wonderful city. After the current reignant first brought Johnny Nash up from Brighton to do his royal imperial his Regent Street for him, but not since it was completed. Completed not, I'm relieved to hear, in the hybrid rajah c.u.m emir c.u.m mehtar c.u.m, I-don't-know, chinoiseried cacique so many of us had at first feared (after the expensive vulgarity of Brighton itself), but a toned-down and at least vaguely vaguely European architecture. I'm even told by some who have actually seen it that it reminds them of a sort of cla.s.sical Greece, Athens say, if Time hadn't trashed it. I've seen prints of course. Athens indeed! We've lost a toned-down Oriental fantasy to a tarted-up Mediterranean one. At least the street appears broad enough. Which must be welcome to one in your profession. European architecture. I'm even told by some who have actually seen it that it reminds them of a sort of cla.s.sical Greece, Athens say, if Time hadn't trashed it. I've seen prints of course. Athens indeed! We've lost a toned-down Oriental fantasy to a tarted-up Mediterranean one. At least the street appears broad enough. Which must be welcome to one in your profession.Thus then then this. this.

Bairn? he thought. Remarkable bairn?

The piece of work you see before you calls itself George Mills. I must tell you at the outset that while he is not entirely native to our neighborhood, he has been in residence hereabouts four years, since 1821 I believe, doing agriculture, the sowing, mowing, tilling, gleaning, threshing, reaping and picking so peculiarly designated to his race and cla.s.s of stoopers and benders. Though he claims in his more defensive moments family-or, rather more particularly, genealogy. It is a long and sometimes tedious story and if you would hear it you will have to hear it from him. If you regard it as his command performance, recital or dramatic entertainment, as, in short, your own capital call to custom, you will have discharged something so close to obligation that only a talmudic philosophe might tell you the difference.

Four years? 1821? The year Wife Cousin Caroline died, the year after I received my crown and she popped back from Italy to claim her "rights" as Queen Consort. Where was that solicitor now that England needed him? Now that even I I needed him? The bill to dissolve the marriage and deny her claims actually introduced and pa.s.sed in Lords, though she died before it could be put to the vote in Commons. In needed him? The bill to dissolve the marriage and deny her claims actually introduced and pa.s.sed in Lords, though she died before it could be put to the vote in Commons. In Commons! Commons! When did I grow old who never gave a fart for scandal? Who asked perfect strangers to wet-nurse me and tweaked the t.i.ts of t.i.tled grandmas? Tweaking before barristers and retainers and the not-so-loyal opposition and even on her deathbed even my wife cousin's milkless, bloodless old dugs. Our daughter would have been dead four years. Caroline would have been sixty-seven. Where was that d.a.m.ned solicitor? It would never have gotten as far as Lords or Commons with him on the case. He wouldn't have needed any bills and pet.i.tions to quitclaim. She'd be alive today. She'd be alive and back in Italy and thankful to G.o.d that the laws he would have told her she'd violated didn't apply there. Seventy-one and alive and happy and cultivating her olive and lemon trees, taking their juices, at least their odors, at least some extract of them in her pores now so that if I ever saw her again and rubbed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s out of pa.s.sion or even only its phantom, the skin on my hands would at least have come away with the remnant oils of the breathing, breeding earth. So where was that jurisdictional solicitor, that legislature and police force and magistracy of a man? When did I grow old who never gave a fart for scandal? Who asked perfect strangers to wet-nurse me and tweaked the t.i.ts of t.i.tled grandmas? Tweaking before barristers and retainers and the not-so-loyal opposition and even on her deathbed even my wife cousin's milkless, bloodless old dugs. Our daughter would have been dead four years. Caroline would have been sixty-seven. Where was that d.a.m.ned solicitor? It would never have gotten as far as Lords or Commons with him on the case. He wouldn't have needed any bills and pet.i.tions to quitclaim. She'd be alive today. She'd be alive and back in Italy and thankful to G.o.d that the laws he would have told her she'd violated didn't apply there. Seventy-one and alive and happy and cultivating her olive and lemon trees, taking their juices, at least their odors, at least some extract of them in her pores now so that if I ever saw her again and rubbed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s out of pa.s.sion or even only its phantom, the skin on my hands would at least have come away with the remnant oils of the breathing, breeding earth. So where was that jurisdictional solicitor, that legislature and police force and magistracy of a man?

"Sowing, mowing, tilling, gleaning, thrashing, reaping and picking," he read.

Picking? Picking? Picking?

"...his command performance," he read. "...your own capital call to...obligation."

He looked at Mills sadly.

When did I grow old? he wondered again. When did good time Charlie become the battler king?

But this was later, this was afterward, when George Mills, driven to understand his predicament, had gone over it a hundred times in his head, when he had ceased thinking of it in terms of the artifact he now knew it to be, a pretentious letter of introduction, and began to look at it as the one man in the world must have done who not only had never been intended to read it but who, now that Mills understood what he had done by showing it to him, was the single person it should at all costs have been kept from. Mills would never forgive himself. But this was a later construction. Now the King was reading about him, and Mills was beside himself in dizzy, crazy glee.

The King read. The damage was done and the King read.

I know him to be, for his sort, a hard enough worker in precisely those areas his sort, though qualified for by Nature and Nature's G.o.d, too often and too often too deliberately neglects when push comes to dig. It may even be a sort of unwitting deception on my part, a benefit of the doubt too generously given (though we both know that if no doubt had its generous benefit, there wouldn't be a king left on his throne or a satrap on his elephant in all the world), but I actually believe the baggage to have some ambition and even a kind of quality. Though, admittedly, of a most irregular and not immediately recognizable, or recognized, sort.Mills was never regularly employed on my holdings. Like many of the peasants hereabouts he found it more to his taste and, quite frankly, to ours in this backwater, more rattleborough than riding, to declare himself rather more the day laborer than the tenant farmer, though my managers tell me that he always appeared whenever he was scheduled and went through the motions of his motions with no complaint and some enthusiasm. One has gone so far as to declare that if we had more like him we might actually manage to bring in a crop now and again.But to the point.He first called my attention to himself one day when I was driving past on the road in the quaint little cabriolet which I think I may have spoken of, either to you or to Ann, when I last visited your fair city-can five years have pa.s.sed since that golden time? While I was still some distance off I glimpsed this callow, raw-boned gawk standing at the edge of a field. To speak truth I might not have noticed him at all, would would not have noticed him at all not have noticed him at all-well you you know the people, how they partake in their very aspect of the landscape itself, seeming as much to belong there as the scrawny trees against which they lounge for shade, as much a part of it as the clayish soil which hides their boots (the pun intended of course; what else has an exile like myself to do than make word games?), dry and dusty as the leaves, more like a sort of crop than a sort of man know the people, how they partake in their very aspect of the landscape itself, seeming as much to belong there as the scrawny trees against which they lounge for shade, as much a part of it as the clayish soil which hides their boots (the pun intended of course; what else has an exile like myself to do than make word games?), dry and dusty as the leaves, more like a sort of crop than a sort of man-if it had not been for the fact that he must have heard me coming even before I spotted him and snapped to with an alacrity which would have been alarming had it not been so dextrous and, well, practiced. practiced. When he whipped off his cap and bowed low as a serf in my direction. I swear, old friend, that even if I had not noticed the gesture, I would have heard its whoosh and snap two furlongs off. He startled me. He startled my horse, and I was already reining in, on the verge of a decision to turn to go back the way I When he whipped off his cap and bowed low as a serf in my direction. I swear, old friend, that even if I had not noticed the gesture, I would have heard its whoosh and snap two furlongs off. He startled me. He startled my horse, and I was already reining in, on the verge of a decision to turn to go back the way I had had come lest he should prove a highwayman. What checked me was the thought that I had probably pa.s.sed his confederates and, if I had, they would have done me, running me to ground like some d.a.m.ned fox. Why, by the very act of so suddenly reining in I had probably already lost the momentum I needed. Using my whip, I pressed the horse on and in that moment decided that if the murderous son of a b.i.t.c.h should take but one step out into the road I would run him down. come lest he should prove a highwayman. What checked me was the thought that I had probably pa.s.sed his confederates and, if I had, they would have done me, running me to ground like some d.a.m.ned fox. Why, by the very act of so suddenly reining in I had probably already lost the momentum I needed. Using my whip, I pressed the horse on and in that moment decided that if the murderous son of a b.i.t.c.h should take but one step out into the road I would run him down.But d.a.m.n me, old friend, if the worthy not only did not not take that step but held his bow and sc.r.a.pe like some foppish frozen commissionaire till I had pa.s.sed. This was two furlongs, mind. In that field he looked at once like some sculpture of rural servility and a piece of organic camouflage. Well. He was there the next day, not in the same field of course take that step but held his bow and sc.r.a.pe like some foppish frozen commissionaire till I had pa.s.sed. This was two furlongs, mind. In that field he looked at once like some sculpture of rural servility and a piece of organic camouflage. Well. He was there the next day, not in the same field of course-he was no shirker-but the next one over. When he bowed in that way and flourished his cap he might have been a border guard of some picturesque country famous for its wines say, not so much questioning credential as already recognizing it two furlongs off and-I cannot say waving one on; he never moved a muscle after that ridiculous show of moving them all at once-seemed to encourage me past some imaginary finish line that could have been his own bent being. And there the next. And the next. Always advancing, mind, daily breaching the front lines of his tasks. And now I was deliberately slowing the horse, bringing it down from the full-out gallop of that first startled day to a canter the second and then to a walk and finally to a sort of lazed limp. I wanted to see how long he would hold that servile pose. It was scientific. (I have to have more than puns and word games; I have to have human nature itself, in nothing like the abundance in which it thrives in London of course. That's understood. That's given. Oh, soon shall I have to quit this lumpen, oafish exile and return once again to civilization! I swear it to you, I positively envy the bearer of this letter!) Not could, would. Could would. Could he could have done forever. It was would I was interested in. he could have done forever. It was would I was interested in.We had left my fields long ago and for some time now had been on the land of tenant farmers working for the country's greatest landowner, a gross Dutchman whose family cannot have been in England over a hundred years. His holdings are, as I have indicated, immense. Armies of peasants work for him. As always, the strange boy preceded me, those two constant furlongs fixed as if they had been struck off by surveyors' sticks and levels, as if I were one end of the reading and he the other.At this most lackadaisical pace the horse and I had a.s.sumed, I had some hope of catching the young man's eye. I seemed to see him staring at me, his eyes fixed on mine as if I led a procession, but whenever we came abreast he looked away, his face in my direction but the eyes off center, gazing elsewhere so that his features took on the marked, pinched ones on a blind man's face. One day I even tipped my hat to him. He blushed but made no more response than that involuntary one of his blood. On another day I bid him h.e.l.lo. The blush went deeper but I got no answer. My G.o.d, I thought, he's mute.You have never had the pleasure of being in my country, though I know I have invited you-I invite you now-nor do I scold so much as condone your decision to stay put in town. That is where all proper gentlemen properly belong, but if you had had come here you would have seen that it is all a gerrymandered fiction of contiguity. Farmers, even real farmers like the dumb Dutchman I alluded to above, live miles from their holdings like absentee landlords, so as we moved deeper and deeper into the Dutchman's hectares we were coming closer and closer to my own home. come here you would have seen that it is all a gerrymandered fiction of contiguity. Farmers, even real farmers like the dumb Dutchman I alluded to above, live miles from their holdings like absentee landlords, so as we moved deeper and deeper into the Dutchman's hectares we were coming closer and closer to my own home.Which is where on the last day of our strange courtship he was waiting for me.I had not even got down from the cabriolet when the piece of goods straightened and approached me. I cannot say that his hat was in his hands, I cannot say where it was. These humble types have a way with their hats (and with their hands too I shouldn't wonder). Why I remark this at all is that for days now he had been playing the milepost for me as I rode by and now his deference seemed as absolute as an act of aggression. If he had stepped out into the road that first day to halt my progress I could not have been more alarmed. Yet apparently he meant no harm, for all he did once he approached was done with an appropriate respect and shyness."Sir," says he, and so awkward as positively to seem to be directing his remarks into the horse's behind. "Sir, er, ah, uh," he says as if trying out strange new vowels he'd learned. "Squire...""Yes," says I. "What is it?""I am a good worker," says the brute."You are certainly excellent at finding the edge of a field and planting yourself in it," says I."You may ask Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones or any of them. I am a good good worker. worker.""Yes, well, I congratulate you," says I, and remind him, "yet it is only what G.o.d expects of all of us.""But, sir, I am no farmer," he says with some warmth."No," says I, "you are a scarecrow.""Sir?""Never mind. What is it you want?""To be your coachman. To drive your coach.""What, this?" say I, indicating the topless, two-wheeled, one-horse carriage in which I sat."Yes, sir.""You are a coachman?""I would be," says he, "oh, squire, I would would be! be!""Then must you first study your trade and learn to recognize what a coach exactly is."In brief, old friend, he had no more idea as to the various sorts of vehicles that abound in his profession than I had regarding the whereabouts of his hat.I told him I was a busy man. I told him he must go to the blacksmith and there make inquiries about the kinds of conveyances there be. I told him he must go to the inns and taverns along the post roads and there observe them. I told him he must undertake to learn what he could of harness and tack. "Why it is as necessary that you brief yourself in these matters," I told him, "as for a sailor to learn about ropes and rigging, sails and stars." Then, bethinking myself of you, I thought to add that if he could could successfully demonstrate to me that he had become possessed of at least the basics of his would-be profession, I had an acquaintance in London who ran the most important public hack and livery system in all of England to whom I might recommend him. successfully demonstrate to me that he had become possessed of at least the basics of his would-be profession, I had an acquaintance in London who ran the most important public hack and livery system in all of England to whom I might recommend him.Naturally I thought never to see him again.He was back within the week, his mouth stuffed with definition, speaking so blithely of barouche, phaeton and sociable, buckboard, calashe, brougham and droshky that one would have thought he was as accustomed to equipage as he was to the very straws he sucked on. We went to my stables, where he challenged me as to the wisdom of using a particular thickness of harness on an animal whose feet had been shod with a certain shape of nail.We went for a ride in the cabriolet. He drove. Brilliantly.Of course I am reluctant to foist upon you someone whom you may not absolutely require, yet I did did give my word and as the fellow, on the evidence, at least give my word and as the fellow, on the evidence, at least seems seems teachable, I overreach myself to the point that, amateur though I may be as to the requirements of the London livery trade, I send you an aspirant I have every reason to believe is one upon whose teachable, I overreach myself to the point that, amateur though I may be as to the requirements of the London livery trade, I send you an aspirant I have every reason to believe is one upon whose loyalties loyalties you may absolutely rely and who may, at the very least, do you some good on the new broad avenues of Regent Street. you may absolutely rely and who may, at the very least, do you some good on the new broad avenues of Regent Street.In the hope that we may all soon meet again in the shining city, and in the further hope that such reunion prove propitious and jubilant, I remain ever your servant and now procurer ...

The country's greatest landowner?

A gross Dutchman whose family cannot have been in England over a hundred years?

The King read and reread the prolix letter.

The pun intended? What pun? What word games? What had he missed? Why had he grown so old?

Exile? Exile? Exile?

George Mills waited while the King read.

Waited patiently. No: humbly. No: proudly. No: all atwitter. No: all of them. All of them all at once. Not one time thinking, He's going to do something for me. Not one time.

While the King read and reread, while he examined the anomalies and ambiguities, while he pored over the double Dutch double entendre, the political acrostic he took the letter to be. But the man is dead, he thought. Discovered and a.s.sa.s.sinated they told me. The most important public hack and livery system in all of England and all its jarvey spies and post-boy plotters shut down, under new management. (The wonder of their plain arrangements! King George thought. They had simply to overhear my clerks and ministers as they drove them down Pall Mall or along the embankment. And spring and summer the best time for spying they told me, during the mild weather, the carriage windows open to the breezes, and our Stuart enemies all ears on a fine day. Secrets lost to the warm front, to balm and ease. Very Nature a co-conspirator.) Not even understanding all of it, confused by their complicated shenanigans, by all held historical grudge, devotees, faction, the partisan life and the boring obsession of blood. Blood, he thought. Blood and milk. He didn't care a d.a.m.n really. It was simply inconvenient to abdicate. And he would miss a king's perks. He had to admit. The handsome expense account, the lovely tributes. But I don't don't understand my enemies! The pains they take, the troubles and lengths they go to. And why would they send me this, this understand my enemies! The pains they take, the troubles and lengths they go to. And why would they send me this, this aspirant? aspirant? (Yet his mind nagged: It (Yet his mind nagged: It could could be a mistake; I could be attributing to machination what perhaps ought to be put down to the simple disfigurement of style.) Still, he thought, I suppose I have to resist. Who's King here anyway? be a mistake; I could be attributing to machination what perhaps ought to be put down to the simple disfigurement of style.) Still, he thought, I suppose I have to resist. Who's King here anyway?

And Mills not only not thinking: He's taking too long, he's probably going to do something for me. He's taking too long, he's probably going to do something for me. But not even thinking: But not even thinking: He's taking too long, he's probably going to do something to me. He's taking too long, he's probably going to do something to me.

The King looked up from the letter Mills had shown him and, seeing the expression of sly puzzlement on the young man's face, mildly asked, "What?"

"Oh, sir," George said, reddening, evasively shrugging.

"What?" he repeated.

"Well it's just ..."