All the same, he could be extremely unpleasant; and one night I had to send a telegram for a special messenger to bring down some confounded Ribbon and Stars, which His Majesty expected me to wear. I’d forgotten the beastly things (I’m exactly like a Christmas Tree when I’m dressed up). One night when I got the King’s Nurse to dress me up, she put the Ribbon of something over the wrong shoulder, and the King harangued me as if I’d robbed a church. I didn’t like to say it was his Nurse’s fault. Some of these Ribbons you put over one shoulder and some of them you have to put over the other; it’s awfully puzzling. But the King was an Angel all the same, only he wasn’t always one. Personally I don’t like perfect angels, one doesn’t feel quite comfortable with them. One of Cecil Rhodes’s secretaries wrote his Life, and left out all his defects; it was a most unreal picture. The Good stands out all the more strikingly if there is a deep shadow. I think it’s called the Rembrandt Effect. Besides, it’s unnatural for a man not to have a Shadow, and the thought just occurs to me how beautiful it is--“The Shadow of Death”! There couldn’t be the Shadow unless there was a bright light! The Bright Light is Immortality! Which reminds me that yesterday I read Dean Inge’s address at the Church Congress the day before on Immortality. If I had anything to do with it, I’d make him Archbishop of Canterbury. I don’t know him, but I go to hear him preach whenever I can. The Story about Queen Alexandra is this. My beloved friend Soveral, one of King Edward’s treasured friends, asked me to lunch on Queen Alexandra’s sixtieth birthday. After lunch all the people said something nice to Queen Alexandra, and it came to my turn, I said to Her Majesty, “Have you seen that halfpenny newspaper about your Majesty’s birthday?” She said she hadn’t, what was it? I said these were the words:-- “The Queen is sixty to-day! May she live till she looks it!” Her Majesty said “Get me a copy of it!” (Such a thing didn’t exist!) About three weeks afterwards (Her Majesty has probably forgotten all about it now, but she hadn’t then) she said, “Where’s that halfpenny newspaper?” I was staggered for a moment, but recovered myself and said “Sold out, Ma’am; couldn’t get a copy!” (I think my second lie was better than my first!) But the lovely part of the story yet remains. A year afterwards she sent me a lovely postcard which I much treasure now. It was a picture of a little girl bowling a hoop, and Her Majesty’s own head stuck on, and underneath she had written:-- “May she live till she looks it!”