“You ought to be ashamed to say so. You ought to take the law and the Constitution and everything into your own hands. If you asserted yourself, they’d never dare to resist you. But you always submit—submit—submit. Of course, everybody takes advantage of a man who always submits. Show that you have some spirit, some sense of your own dignity. Order Tsargradev’s dismissal and arrest. You can do it now, at once, this evening. Then to-morrow you can go down to the Soviete, and tell them what a scoundrel he is—a thief, a murderer, a traitor, an impostor, a libertine, everything that’s foul and bad. And tell them that henceforward you intend to be really King, and not merely nominally King; and that you’re going to govern exactly as you think best; and that, if they don’t like that, they will have to make the best of it. If they resist, you can dissolve them, and order a general election. Or you can suspend the Constitution, and govern without any Soviete at all.” The King laughed again. “I’m afraid the Soviete might ask for a little evidence, a few proofs, in support of my sweeping charges. I could hardly satisfy them by declaring that I had my wife’s word for it. But, seriously, you exaggerate. Tsargradev is anything you like from the point of view of abstract ethics, but he’s not a criminal. He hasn’t the faintest motive for doing anything that isn’t in accordance with the law. He’s simply a vulgar, self-seeking politician, with a touch of the Tartar. But he’s not a thief, and I imagine his private life is no worse than most men’s.” “Wait, wait, only wait!” cried the Queen. “Time will show. Some day he’ll come to grief, and then you’ll see that he’s even worse than I have said. I feel, I know, he’s everything that’s bad. Trust a woman’s intuitions. They’re much better than what you call evidence.” And she had a nickname for him, which, as well as her general criticisms of his character, had pretty certainly reached the Premier’s ear; for, as subsequent events demonstrated, very nearly every servant in the Palace was a spy in his pay. She called him the nain jaune.