The note was curt, very much to the point, and signed by a single initial. "_If you wear this to-morrow night I shall know what to expect._" The date was three weeks old. A whisper followed, and the deeper voice returned: "And you drifted as far apart as _that!_ I think it makes us quits now, doesn't it? Oh, can't we drop this folly once and for all? Is it worth it, darling?" "Kiss me too," said His Majesty the King, dreamily. "You isn't _vevy_ angwy, is you?" The fever burned itself out, and His Majesty the King slept. When he waked, it was in a new world--peopled by his father and mother as well as Miss Biddums: and there was much love in that world and no morsel of fear, and more petting than was good for several little boys. His Majesty the King was too young to moralize on the uncertainty of things human, or he would have been impressed with the singular advantages of crime--ay, black sin. Behold, he had stolen the "'parkle cwown," and his reward was Love, and the right to play in the waste-paper basket under the table "for always". * * * * * He trotted over to spend an afternoon with Patsie, and the Commissioner's wife would have kissed him. "No, not vere," said His Majesty the King, with superb insolence, fencing one corner of his mouth with his hand, "Vat's my Mamma's place--vere _she_ kisses me," "Oh!" said the Commissioner's wife, briefly. Then to herself: "Well, I suppose I ought to be glad for his sake. Children are selfish little grubs and--I've got my Patsie." THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES Alive or dead--there is no other way.--_Native Proverb_.