Category: Humour

King John of Jingalo: The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties

The King of Jingalo had just finished breakfast in the seclusion of the royal private apartments. Turning away from the pleasantly deranged board he took up one of the morning newspapers which lay neatly folded upon a small gilt-legged table beside him. Then he looked at his w...

Chapters

8. Chapter 8

His Majesty shook at her the paper he had just been reading. "You have promised a hundred pounds donation to the Anti-vivisection Society! Here it is in large headlines: 'The Pr...

13. Chapter 13

While the King and the Prime Minister had thus been giving each other shocks of a somewhat unpleasant character, Prince Max had received a far pleasanter one. Only a week after...

11. Chapter 11

Readers who have hearts will remember that while these things were taking place in the political world, something of more intimate and personal concern had happened to Prince Ma...

18. Chapter 18

There was plenty of hue and cry to discover the perpetrator of the outrage, but nothing came of it. From somewhere in that labyrinth of unfinished building and scaffolding fence...

2. Chapter 2

"In this developing crisis the Nation looks with complete and loyal assurance to him who alone stands high and independent above all parties, confident that when the time for a...

3. Chapter 3

Bump! bump! bump! went his head. Through a confused vision of stars, veined marble, stained glass, and flying stair-rails he saw his legs trail helplessly after, close in above,...

19. Chapter 19

Since the break-up of his plans the King had been finding consolation in his son's book, an advance copy of which had reached him while Max was still abroad. Consolation is, per...

1. Chapter 1

The King of Jingalo had just finished breakfast in the seclusion of the royal private apartments. Turning away from the pleasantly deranged board he took up one of the morning n...

4. Chapter 4

That talk with Max formed the preliminary to a month of the most strenuous verbal and intellectual conflict that the King had ever known. Outside all was calm: the Constitutiona...

15. Chapter 15

"But I had to do it!" she protested. "After what that paper had said, and all the other things, how else could I show that I hadn't come on purpose?"

23. Chapter 23

The first meeting between Charlotte and her suitor had been tactfully arranged; they had met riding to a review of troops in the great Field of Mars which occupied a central spa...

16. Chapter 16

It is no use pretending that all history is equally interesting, even though the facts which it contains are necessary for an understanding of what follows. And I am well aware...

14. Chapter 14

Bad-as-Bad was a hardy annual which grew high up among the hills and pine-forests on the borders of Schafs-Kleider and Schnapps-Wasser. With its roots extending into both States...

20. Chapter 20

The crowd of prisoners seated on benches round the walls had become attenuated; only about a score of them now remained. Women had been dealt with first, the residuum were men;...

10. Chapter 10

"He reminds me," said one of his ministers irritably, "of the school-boy's story of the tea-kettle which discovered locomotion. Off boiled the lid: 'Why!' cries the observant in...

12. Chapter 12

The Comptroller-General was greatly puzzled to see writing going on day after day in which neither he nor any of the secretaries were invited to take part. He was more puzzled s...

21. Chapter 21

But the Prime Minister, though he lost no time, was unable to catch his quarry. Prince Max had gone out; and his secretary could give no information as to his whereabouts. "His...

24. Chapter 24

While these events of political moment were going on, Prince Hans Fritz Otto of Schnapps-Wasser had been busy planting himself in the good graces of the Princess Charlotte. They...

22. Chapter 22

The next day Prince Max received a letter written by the hand which had become for him the dearest in the world. It was very simple and straightforward and methodical: it began...

17. Chapter 17

The King and Queen sat in their state coach responding with low bows to the plaudits of the crowd. Their velvets and ermines lay heavy upon them, for although it was now Novembe...

5. Chapter 5

All this while other swan-songs were in preparation to be forced down other throats (and thence presently to be rejected); forced with that gentle air of persuasion which rears...

26. Chapter 26

For three whole weeks thereafter--if the papers were to be believed--the entire nation hung upon the bulletins which were issued hourly from the royal palace. The King's illness...

25. Chapter 25

It was noticed when the King came down to the first Council of the new session that his face was flushed and his manner strangely discomposed. He barely returned the respectful...

7. Chapter 7

already know. How little the truce brought benefit to him we shall learn more fully in later chapters. Still for the moment he was not without comfort, for he had got Max to tal...

9. Chapter 9

All this, the reader will remember, had taken place in Lent. The King had done something which according to the accepted canons was quite incorrect; he had been to a frivolous b...

6. Chapter 6

And then they compared notes and settled dates as to when war was to be declared. Jingalo was about to exhibit to the world the continuity of her institutions, and with her mind...