The King and Queen sat in their state coach responding with low bows to the plaudits of the crowd. Their velvets and ermines lay heavy upon them, for although it was now November, the day was close and warm, and there seemed to be thunder in the air. The King, in this his Jubilee year, had resumed wearing his crown on great State occasions, for he found that the people liked it. He had worn it at the Foot-washing; and every one then admitted that it gave the true symbolic touch to the whole ceremony. And now for the last time he was wearing it again. Artistically he was right; a cocked hat, of nineteenth-century pattern, does not accord well with robes in the style of the sixteenth. In some countries that mistake is made by royalty out of compliment to the army; but if on these State occasions sartorial compliments are to be paid irrespective of the general effect, then surely your monarch should wear a wig as representative of the law, lawn-sleeves in honor of the Church, and divide the rest of his person impartially between the army, the navy, and the doctors. Thus all the great professions would receive their due recognition, and we should presently find so symbolical a combination just as harmonious and dignified, and as pregnant with meaning, as we do the heraldic quarterings by which the mixed blood of ancestry is so proudly displayed. We can get accustomed to anything if there is a good reason for it; but when we cease to be reasonable, beauty should be our only guide. In this case reason as well as beauty had induced King John of Jingalo to reject the cocked hat and to resume the crown. The royal coach had already borne its occupants along two miles of the route; and continued exercise was making them warm. "Good Heavens!" exclaimed the King, "it's very stuffy in here; I feel as if I were in a furnace. Why did you ask to have the windows closed, my dear?" "It makes one feel so much safer," said the Queen, keeping her stereotyped smile, and sweeping a bow as she spoke. "Safer from what?" Here his Majesty responded to a fresh burst of cheers. "Accidents," replied his consort; "one never knows." "Glass, my dear, does not protect one from the accidents of Kings. Glass can't stop bullets, you know." "I didn't mean that sort of accident; and I wish you wouldn't talk about them just now." "You always take out an umbrella when you don't want it to rain; and if one talks about accidents then they don't happen. At least that has always been my experience. What sort of accident do you mean?" "Dust, and microbes, and infection, and all that sort of thing. There must be a lot of it about in so large a crowd; I wonder how many people with measles." "What an idea!" exclaimed the King: "people with measles don't come out to see shows." "Oh, yes, they do,--nursemaids especially. They all catch it from each other in the public parks; at least so I've been told. And whenever I see a perambulator now, I think of it."