It was in the palace library, a large and lofty room on the ground floor, with a row of tall windows overlooking the garden, that the King spent his office hours. The library was strictly reserved for his use alone. The secretaries, who served his personal needs, were accommodated in a smaller room adjoining, which communicated with the library by folding doors. Although he was compelled to maintain, in this way, the isolation which was so little to his taste, it was characteristic of the King, in his dealings with his immediate subordinates, that he should take some pains not to appear too patently the man apart. This was the way they had taught him in the Navy. On more than one "happy ship," on which he had served, the King had learnt that, to get good work out of subordinates, it was expedient to treat them as fellow workers, and equals, as men, although graded differently in rank, for the purposes of discipline, and pay. It was in more or less mechanical application of this principle, that, still whistling gaily, he chose now, to enter the library, not directly, but through the secretaries' room adjoining. In the airy, sunny, secretaries' room, the low murmur of talk, and the clatter of typewriters, which seem inseparable from office work, ceased abruptly. There was a general, hurried, pushing back of chairs. Then the half dozen men and women in the room rose, hastily, to their feet. They had not expected to see the King so early. After the exhausting Coronation ceremony of the day before, and the heavy demands on his strength, which the day, as a whole, had made, they had expected him to rest. And here he was, a little before his usual time, if anything, buoyant, and vigorous, and laughing goodhumouredly at their surprise and confusion, ready apparently to attack the accumulation of papers which they had waiting for him. With a genial nod, which seemed to be directed to each man and woman present, individually, the King passed quickly through the room, into the library beyond, opening and shutting the intervening folding doors for himself, with a sailor's energy. The secretaries, men and women alike, turned, and looked at each other, and smiled. Although he was, of necessity, ignorant of the fact, the King had left interested, and very willing fellow workers behind him.