All this time the King had sat cautiously imbibing the stimulus of his son's words. They sent a curious glow through his system; for they touched on the very point which was now daily engaging his thoughts--how, in connection with his own ministerial problem, to do the thing which Brasshay did not expect without thereby involving the prestige of the monarchy in ruin. He looked at his son, so full of self-confidence, so easy and unconcerned in the opinions of others, and very greatly he envied him. "Max," he said slowly, "you are a very dangerous character." And Max was flattered, as your man of words and not of deeds always is flattered when the attributes which belong by rights to his betters are ascribed to him. Nevertheless, in this instance the epithet was well earned, for these secret potations of Max were having their effect upon the King's brain; they reproduced in facsimile the cerebral excitement which had followed upon his fall, and touching the same spot kindled in him a curious mental ardor, which sent him to his Council a different person altogether, one whom his ministers were finding it difficult to recognize and still more difficult to reconcile to their plans. Only when the effects had died down towards the end of each day did the King become himself again. Obstreperous till noon, he would then quiet down by degrees till, at six o'clock, his spirits had reached a strange nadir of depression. Had Brasshay only caught him then, in that period of reaction, he would have found him unformidable as of old; but Brasshay did not know. And then, night after night, came Max with his tangle of words and whipped him into fresh revolt. He still carried the memory of that last conversation--that chapter which Max had composed into the echoing cavities of his brain--when he next encountered the Lord Functionary. Certain questions of court etiquette and procedure having been disposed of: "By the way," said his Majesty, "I was told yesterday that you are being criticised--in the play department, I mean." The Lord Functionary had been spending sleepless nights in a scrambling attempt to acquire a literary education; but his own royal master was the last person to whom he would give himself away; so he only smiled with that air of deference and self-complacence which all court officials know how to combine. "I have heard rumors of it, sir," he replied, in a tone of easy detachment. "Who are making the complaints?" "Certain members of Parliament, I believe. They have constituents to satisfy; and under a democracy, of course, autocrats can never do right." "Are you the autocrat?" inquired the King. "At your Majesty's disposal," returned the Lord Functionary with a bow. "Then you are not responsible to Parliament?" The Lord Functionary smiled, with a touch of disdain. "I should not be holding office if I were," said he. "Then you are not under the Prime Minister, either?"