a vain effort to clear his throat of a pill from the laboratory of Nature.

“On earth I always kept a box of bon mots on my chimney piece,” put in Sydney Smith.

“If they had been chocolate bon bons, you would have been a sustaining favorite among the ladies,” chuckled King Henry the Eighth.

“Where knowledge of women is concerned, I bow to your marital Majesty,” acquiesced Smith. “Mere man never becomes a post-graduate on femininology, but he can manage to get up a bowing acquaintance with women after he is married to six of them. It seems to me that Utah would be a good place to study her ‘of infinite variety.’ I have often thought that much of[Pg 49] Solomon’s wisdom came from his three hundred wives.”

[Pg 49]

“With such a match-making father,” I put in, my newspaper instinct scenting “copy,” “I have often wondered why good Queen Bess never married.”

“I’m sorry Elizabeth didn’t keep up the family reputation,” answered the king, “but I guess she thought I did marrying enough for the whole family. Besides, Bess had her hands full ruling the kingdom and her temper without attempting to rule a husband. However, I never could understand why she turned a deaf ear to Sir Walter’s pleading. He wooed her so long with his eyes that she asked him one day why he was such a mute, inglorious Raleigh. He replied that a beggar who is dumb should challenge double pity. As many another man has done since then, the silent lover lost his head over a woman.”

“That’s the King James version,” retorted Sir Walter. “It seems to me that your Majesty should confine yourself to rattling the skeletons in your own Bluebeard’s closet.”

“I see you have a sharp tongue to match the edge of the axe which brought you to your knees. You had a reason for what you did on earth, but you lost your reason along with your head when you left the upper world. By the shade of Anne Boleyn,” went on the king, becoming more and more enraged as he proceeded, “were we on earth,[Pg 50] your insolence should cause you to swing from Tyburn’s tree.”

[Pg 50]

“You can’t string me up,” sneered Raleigh. “No man ever made a monkey of me.”

“No, but a woman did. You can’t cloak what you did for Elizabeth. Now Anne—”

“You forget yourself,” 

 Prev. P 25/83 next