"Well, go for a beginning to the very plays your Comptroller refrains from recommending or tries to dissuade you from. Oh, you won't come upon anything shocking; quite the reverse. That play, _The Gaudy Girl_, which I spoke of just now, is about to be revived in a new form--with additions. No doubt it will draw enormously; and as a fortune has been spent on it you would do a popular thing by attending the first performance. It is a risky and indecent piece, but no one will object, on that score, to its receiving the royal patronage." "How possibly can it be indecent," protested the King, "when it has already run for five hundred nights at one of our leading theaters?" Max smiled. "Father," he said, "in all your life have you ever once been in a crowd--formed part of it, I mean? Well, then, how can you tell? I have. There is plenty of indecency in a Jingalese crowd--especially indecent suggestion; and it is crowds the theaters have to cater for." "Still, they have the Censor to reckon with." "The Censor!" exclaimed Max. "Have you ever asked the Lord Functionary, who controls him, to show you the text of the plays he passes?--or gone further in order to compare them with those he does not pass? Till you have, you know nothing about the Censor's protective powers. He merely protects the existing order of things, like yourself; whatever is paying and popular it becomes his duty to countenance. Well, all that is strictly within your own department, for the supervision of the morals of the stage is still a royal prerogative outside parliamentary control. And I tell you this--that if you were to begin exercising your prerogative conscientiously you would get into more intimate touch with the popular will than would suit the calculations of your ministers. As for the Lord Functionary, he would probably resign. He might be glad of the excuse. Just now there is a considerable row on, and he finds himself in hot water. When you see him you had better ask him about it; and as he is technically the keeper of your conscience you really have a concern in the matter. What has he been doing? Oh, merely drawing the usual invidious distinction between adultery treated seriously and adultery treated as a joke. Under this latter and more popular form it is now occupying with success half the theaters in Jingalo. And if you want to see the deeps open, and understand what they contain,--well, there you have your cue: follow it! Only do that, and you will light such a candle--Ah! now I am quoting from English history; and as I am only concerned with that of Jingalo--I perceive that my present chapter has come to an end. May I take another cigar?" III