“To be a queen is to lead the life effective as well as the life strenuous. This is one day’s doings in the role of Regina, as ticked off by the hours—figuratively, of course, for you are aware that there are no clocks in Hades: “10 A. M.—‘Good morning.’ “11 A. M.—Sampling new breakfast foods. “12 M.—Reading the Cimmerian Chatterbox and the Stygian Smart Set. “1 P. M.—Writing autographs to be auctioned off at New York sales rooms. “2 P. M.—Dinner. “3 P. M.—Yachting on the Styx. “4 P. M.—Sixty minutes with Her Majesty’s diary. “5 P. M.—Dictating an historical novel to Sir Isaac Pitman. “By-the-bye,” she broke off suddenly, “Sir Isaac has become afflicted with writers’ cramp and I need someone to take his place. You are that someone.” I knelt, expecting to feel the flat end of a sword laid upon me, but her Grace simply twined a lock of my blonde hair around her finger. “Arise, Sir Scribe,” she said, glancing around apprehensively. “Your attitude is that of a lover proposing to his mistress, and as a penalty for posing in the upper world, Mephisto has decreed that whatever attitude a man assumes in Hades, he must set it to words or to music. I am going to be merciful and you may make of your proposal a frayed-out phonograph record which will repeat ‘I love you’ without variation. The warmth of your protestations may melt the wax? You need have no fear of that. You would be more likely to break the record; we do not use wax cylinders, but rubber. As for making you my official scribe, the touch of royalty is sufficient to confer knighthood. Since poor Walter took that ‘sharp remedy’ for all diseases, I have shunned the sword.” Curiosity is my besetting sin—it is by no means a woman’s prerogative—and as it has been one of my fads to read a person’s character by a glance at his or her hands, I bowed in humble gratitude at the honor conferred upon me, but not without an upward look at the fair hand poised gracefully above me. That fleeting glance told me much. Certain chroniclers of the period Before Darwin tell us that marks were made on the hands of men—and women?—that the sons of men might know them. As the passage occurs in Job, some higher critics interpret the marks to mean boils, but we palmists know better. Palmistry is Cupid masquerading in a scientific costume; it gives a man a valid excuse for holding a girl’s hand. Of course even a scribe can’t take such liberties with a queen, although the cunning of chiromancy prompted me to attempt a revelation of Her Majesty’s character. Just what I found in the hand that swayed the destinies of the world She made me promise not to tell. “God save the Queen—” and the Gentle Reader! After detailing her destiny, I arose with a muttered apology for consuming so much of her time. “It isn’t only time that is consumed in Hades, but if you wish to go, you may,” assented Her Grace. “I never argue with a bored sign post about the distance to the street.”