"I thought you were an Englishman," observed King, with a quizzical smile.
"I am, sir. I can't help saying rubbernecks, sir, though it's a shocking word. It's the only name for them, sir. That's what the little Prince calls them, too. You see, it's one form of amusement they provide for him, and I am supposed to help it along as much as possible. Mr. Tullis takes him out in the avenue whenever I've got a party in hand. I telephone up to the Castle that I've got a crowd and then I drive 'em out to the Park here. The Prince says he just loves to watch the rubbernecks go by. It's great fun, sir, for the little lad. He never misses a party, and you can believe it or not, he has told me so himself. Yes, sir, the Prince has had more than one word with me--from time to time." King looked at the little man's reddish face and saw therein the signs of exaltation indigenous to a land imperial.
He hesitated for an instant and then remarked, with a mean impulse to spoil Hobbs's glorification: "I have dined with the President of the United States."
Hobbs was politely unimpressed. "I've no doubt, sir," he said. "I daresay it was an excellent dinner."
King blinked his eyes and then turned them upon the passing show. He was coming to understand the real difference between men.
"I say, who is that just passing--the lady in the victoria?" he asked abruptly.
"That is the Countess Marlanx."
"Whew! I thought she was the queen!"
Hobbs went into details concerning the beautiful Countess. During the hour and a half of display he pointed out to King all of the great personages, giving a Baedeker-like account of their doings from childhood up, quite satisfying that gentleman's curiosity and involving his cupidity at the same time.
When, at last, the show was over, Truxton and the voluble little interpreter, whom he had employed for the occasion, strolled leisurely back to the heart of the town. Something had come over King, changing the quaint old city from a prosaic collection of shops and thoroughfares into a veritable playground for Cinderellas and Prince Charmings. The women, to his startled imagination, had been suddenly transformed from lackadaisical drudges into radiant personages at whose feet it would be a pleasure to fall, in whose defence it would be divine to serve; the men were the cavaliers that had called to him from the pages of chivalrous tales, ever since the days of his childhood. Here were knights and ladies such as he had dreamed of and despaired of ever seeing outside his dreams.