Peck's Bad Boy Abroad

s Dad Call on King

he Irish

u think, touching a king for a hand-out, or borrowing his loose change, the way you used to touch dad when yo

and his dad were in town, and just wanted to size up a king and see how he aver

otel people said we would be obliged to wear knee breeches and dancing pumps and silk socks, and all that kind of rot, and men's furnishers began to call upon us to take our measure for clothes, but when they told us how much it would cost, dad kicked. He said he had a golf suit he had made in

ere the calf ought to be, but worked around towards his shin. We went to Marlboro House in a hansom cab, and all the way there the driver kept looking down from the hurricane deck, through the scuttle hol

is hundreds of lords and dukes and things, a crown on his head, and an ermine cloak trimmed with red velvet, and a six-quart milk pan full of diamonds, some of them as big as a chunk of alum, dad weakened, and wanted to give the whole thing up and go to a matinee, but I wouldn't have it, and told him if he didn't get into the king row now that I would shake him right there in L

of Central park, and up to a building that was big as a lot of exposition buildings, and the servants took us in charge and walked us through long rooms covered with pictures as big as side show pictures at a circus, but instead of snake charmers and snakes and wild men of Borneo and sword swallowers, th

r friend died every day, and their faces seem to have grown that way. So when they laff it seems as though the wrinkles would stay there, unless they treated their faces with massage. They were laughing at dad's dislocated calf, and his scared appearance, as though he was going to receive the thirty-second degree, and didn't know whether they were going to throw him over a

cemetery, and the grand conductor gave us a few instructions about how to back out fifteen feet from the presence of the king, when we were dismissed, and then he turned us over to

than five feet six, but a perfect picture of the cigar advertisements of America for a cigar named after the king. I expected to see a king as big as Long John Wentworth of Chicago, a great big fellow tha

at are short on wheat, or a gathering of defeated politicians when the election returns come in. But the king is as jolly as though he had not a note coming due at the bank, and you would think he was a good, common citizen, after working hours, at a round beer table, with two schooner loads in the hold and another schooner on the way, frothing over the top of the stein. That is the feeling I had for the king when he came up to us and greeted dad as the father of the bad boy and patted me on the shoulder and said: "And so you are the boy that has made more troubl

n't know whether the king said that just to wake dad up, 'cause dad had a grand army button on his coat, but dad choked up a little, and then began to explode, a little at a time, like a bunch of firecrackers, and finally he went off all in a bunch. Dad s

er would consent to America and Great Britain getting together to fight any country until Ireland got justice and was ready to come into camp on an equality, and the king said he would answer for the Irishmen of Ireland if dad would p

f Libertee," and the king sang "God Save the King," and, by thunder, it was the same tune, and tears came into dad's eyes, and the king took out his handkerchief and wiped his nose, and I bellered right out, and the king rose and offered a toast to America and everybody in it, and

e hassock back of me, and I kicked it back of dad, and when dad's heels struck it he went over backwards and struck on his golf pants, and dad said: "El, 'Ennery, I'ave broken my bloomink back, but who cares," and when the servants pic

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