The King of Alsander

Chapter VI. Concerning Isis and Aphrodite: with a digression on the shocking treatment the latter's followers receive from the hands of English novelists

Chapter VII. The Society for the Advancement of Alsander

Chapter VIII. How Norman failed to pass a qualifying examination for the post of King of Alsander, and was whipped: together with a digression on the excellence of whipping

Chapter IX. The Consul

Chapter X. Contains the President's tale and a debate on the advantages of murder

Chapter XI. A Visit to Vorza

Chapter XII. In which the Beetles crawl

Chapter XIII. Re-Coronation

Chapter XIV. Princess Ianthe

Chapter XV. Peronella and the Priest

Chapter XVI. The Counter Conspiracy: an episode in the style of the worst writers

Chapter XVII. Battle

Chapter XVIII. The Poet visits Blaindon once more, and takes John Gaffekin to the seashore, where a miracle occurs

PREFACE

_Here is a tale all romance--a tale such as only a Poet can write for you, O appreciative and generous Public--a tale of madmen, kings, scholars, grocers, consuls, and Jews: a tale with two heroines, both of an extreme and indescribable beauty: a tale of the South and of sunshine, wherein will be found disguises, mysteries, conspiracies, fights, at least one good whipping, and plenty of blood and love and absurdity: a very old sort of tale: a tale as joyously improbable as life itself._

_But if I know you aright, appreciative and generous Public, you look for more than this in these tragic days of social unrest, and you will be most dissatisfied with my efforts to please you. For you a king is a shadow, a madman a person to be shut up, a scholar a fool, a grocer a tradesman, a consul an inferior grade of diplomatic officer, and a Jew a Jew. You will demand to know what panacea is preached in this novel as a sovran remedy for the dismal state of affairs in England. With what hope do I delude the groaning poor: with what sarcasm insult the insulting rich? What is the meaning of my apparent joyousness? What has grim iron-banging England to do with sunshine, dancing, adventure and, above all, with Poets?_

_In support of my reputation let me hasten to observe that in my efforts to please a generous and appreciative Public I have not failed to insert several passages of a high moral tone. Grave matters of ethics are frequently discussed in the course of my story, and the earnest inquirer may learn much from this book concerning the aim, purpose and origin of his existence. To Government and its problems I have given particular attention, and the observant reader may draw from these subtle pages a complete theory of the Fallacy of the Picturesque. Only I implore the public to forgive the Poet his proverbial licence, to remember that truth is still truth, though clad in harlequin raiment, and thought still thought, though hinted and not explained._

Farewell, then, my King of Alsander. Ride out into the world and conquer. Behind you--a merry and a mocking phantom--my youth rides out for ever!

Beyrouth, Syria, 1913.

THE KING OF ALSANDER

CHAPTER I

BLAINDON

Would that I had a little cot Beside a little hill, In some romantic English spot Where summer's not so very hot And winter not too chill.

J. Williams

The writer of these simple lines, now unhappily dead, was a man of the soil, whose sweet native note had never been troubled by the sinister depravities, the heartless affectations of urban existence; and I believe myself that his pathetic and modest ideal could have been actually realized had he inhabited, as perhaps he did, the peaceful village of Blaindon. This secluded hamlet lies some ten miles from the sea, in an undulating, but not terrible, country--a land of woodland and meadow, of buttercup and daisy, of tiny streams and verdant dells. At evening the scene is more tranquil than ever, and the old church spire, standing sentinel above the cold ploughlands, presents a curiously sad appearance, tinged as it is with the melancholy of years. However at the time when this story opens it was not evening, but afternoon, and a very hot one. The horse in his freedom, like the pig in his confinement, lolled upon the ground, and the thatches rustled with the melodies of sleep.