"Well, well," said Max, "put me in touch then, and I will see what I can do. But I haven't the grand manner, you know." II The King was considering the request of his revered uncle, the Duke of Nostrum, to preside over the Commission on slums, when Max came, asking also to be made useful. "What, you too?" cried his Majesty; "isn't one of us enough?" "Quite," said Max. "I want to be that one." "What are your qualifications?" "Willingness," said Max, "a brain capable of taking fire at facts, a great position, and an open and rebellious mind. I am quoting from authority; I was given my certificate yesterday." To his Majesty this was merely the voice of Max at his flightiest. "Well," he said, "your Uncle Nostrum happens to have come first." "Do you always grant first applications?" "He has had much more experience." "Of slums?" inquired Max. "Of commissions, and all that sort of thing. He has sat on them." "So he has--the elephant! And they have died the death." "He works," said the King, "and you don't! You only talk." "I only talk!" cried the injured Max; his voice went up to Heaven appealing against parental injustice. "Has he ever in his life been down into the slums and spent whole days there, as I have? Has he carried buckets for washing-sisters of charity, as I have; and borne upon his back the beds of the dying, as I have?" "You?" cried the King with incredulity. "I do not publish these things upon the housetops," said Max, "but in the secrecy of your chamber and in strict confidence I tell you that they are true. And while I, for many anxious weeks, have been toiling to qualify for this post, he, this Nostrum, this patent-drug from our royal medicine-chest, this soporific sedative----" "Max, Max!" reproved his father. "He rushes in where an angel has feared to tread, and filches from me my reward!" "My dear boy, are you serious?" cried the King. "I was never more serious in my life, father," replied his son. "But in order to arrest your attention I have to be theatrical. Now if you will really believe what I am going to say I will drop play-acting. I have, as I tell you, been down into our slum districts, I have been among the slum workers, means have been offered me for studying these problems at first hand, and I am prepared,--from this week on when Parliament rises, and the metropolis empties itself of pleasure, and you have gone sadly to your annual cure at Bad-as-Bad,--I am prepared to devote the whole of my time and energy to qualifying for this post; and with Heaven helping me, I will make it the most astonishing and effective Royal Commission that ever sat down believing itself on cushions to find that it was on a hornets' nest." "You are becoming theatrical again," said the King. "No, no," said Max, "but my brain is taking fire; an angel warned me of it in a dream, and behold it has come true. I have been seeing things." "Your Uncle Nostrum won't be pleased," remarked the King.