“Oh, bother etiquette,” said she. “Etiquette was made for slaves. We’ll send your Cousin Peter. One must find some use for one’s Cousin Peters.” “Yes; but this is a business, alas, in which one’s Cousin Peter won’t go down. I’m very sorry to say we’ll have to attend in person.” “Nonsense!” she repeated. “Attend in person! How can you think of such a thing? We’d be bored and fatigued to death. It will be unspeakable. Nothing but dull, stodgy, suffocating German pomposity and bad taste. Oh, je m’y connais! Red cloth, and military bands, and interminable banquets, and noise, and confusion, and speeches (oh, the speeches!), until you’re ready to drop. And besides, we’d be herded with a crowd of ninth-rate princelings and petty dukes, who smell of beer and cabbage and brilliantine. We’d be relegated to the fifth or sixth rank, behind people who are all of them really our inferiors. Do you suppose I mean to let myself be patronised by a lot of stupid Hohenzollerns and Grâtzhoffens? No, indeed! You can send your Cousin Peter.” “Ah, my dear, if I were the Tsar of Russia!” laughed her husband. “Then I could send a present and a poor relation, and all would be well. But—you speak of ninth-rate princelings. A ninth-rate princeling like the Krol of Tchermnogoria must make act of presence in his proper skin. It’s de rigueur. There’s no getting out of it. We must go.” “Well, you may go, if you like,” her Majesty declared. “As for me, I won’t. If you choose to go and be patronised and bored, and half killed by the fatigue, and half ruined by the expense, I suppose I can’t prevent you. But, if you want my opinion, I think it’s utter insane folly.” And she re-absorbed herself in her letter, with the air of one who had been distracted for a moment by a frivolous and tiresome interruption. The King did not press the matter that evening, but the next morning he mustered his courage, and returned to it. “My dear,” he began, “I beg you to listen to me patiently for a moment, and not get angry. What I wish to say is really very important.” “Well, what is it? What is it?” she enquired, with anticipatory weariness.