"I should try to rule the realm like a Christian statesman," replied Mr. Ducksmith. "I should have a devil of a time!" said Aristide. "I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Ducksmith. "I should have a--ah, I see--_pardon_. I should----" He looked from one paralyzing face to the other, and threw out his arms. "_Parbleu!_" said he, "I should decapitate your Mrs. Grundy, and make it compulsory for bishops to dance once a week in Trafalgar Square. _Tiens!_ I would have it a capital offence for any English cook to prepare hashed mutton without a license, and I would banish all the bakers of the kingdom to Siberia--ah! your English bread, which you have to eat stale so as to avoid a horrible death!--and I would open two hundred thousand _cafés_--_mon Dieu!_ how thirsty I have been there!--and I would make every English work-girl do her hair properly, and I would ordain that everybody should laugh three times a day, under pain of imprisonment for life." "I am afraid, Mr. Pujol," remarked Mr. Ducksmith, seriously, "you would not be acting as a constitutional monarch. There is such a thing as the British Constitution, which foreigners are bound to admire, even though they may not understand." "To be a king must be a great responsibility," said Mrs. Ducksmith. "Madame," said Aristide, "you have uttered a profound truth." And to himself he murmured, though he should not have done so, "_Nom de Dieu! Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!_" After lunch they drove to Versailles, which they inspected in the same apathetic fashion; then they returned to the hotel, where they established themselves for the rest of the day in the airless salon, Mr. Ducksmith reading English newspapers and his wife knitting a grey woollen sock. "_Mon vieux!_" said Aristide to Bocardon, "they are people of a nightmare. They are automata endowed with the faculty of digestion. _Ce sont des gens invraisemblables._"