"I know that man!" Mallory said, his voice trembling. "He's a violent Luddite conspirator. He may be the most dangerous man in England!"
"You don't say," the King grunted.
"He's a dire threat to public safety!"
"Fellow didn't look like much," the King said. "Funny little duck, wore spectacles and talked to hisself."
"The man is an enemy of the realma dark-lanternist of the most sinister description!"
"I don't much hold with politics, meself," said the King, leaning back quite at his ease. "The Bill-Sticking Regulatory Actnow that's politics for you, a doltish business! That blasted Act is mighty stiff, regarding where bills may be posted. Let me tell you, Dr. Mallory, I personally know the Member that got that Act passed in Parliament, for
I was hired for his election campaign. He didn't mind where his bills went. It was all quite right-enough, so long as they was his bills!"
"My God!" Mallory broke in. "The thought of that evil man, loose in Londonwith money, from God only knows what sourcefomenting riot and rebellion during a public emergencyand in control of an Engine-driven press! It's nightmarish! Horrible!"
"Pray don't fash yourself. Dr. Mallory," the King chided gently. "My dear old father, rest his soul, used to tell me: 'When all about you are losing their heads, son, just remember: there are still twenty shillings in a pound.' "
"That's as may be," Mallory said, "but"
"My dear dad stuck bills in the Time of Troubles! Back in the thirties, when the cavalry charged on the working-people, and old Hooky-Nose Wellington got hisself blown to flinders. Hard times indeed, sir, much harder than soft modern days with this trifling Stink! Call this an emergency? Why, I call it opportunity, and have done with it."
"You don't seem to grasp the urgency of the crisis," Mallory said.
"The Time of Troublesnow that was when they printed the first four-sheet double-crowns! The Tory Government used to pay my old dadmy dad was Beadle and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrews, Holbornto black-wash Radical bills. He had to hire women to do it, there was so much call for the job. He'd black-wash Rad bills by day, and stick up new ones by night! There's a deal of fine opportunity in your times of revolution."
Mallory sighed.
"My dad invented the device we call the Patent Extendable Dabbing-Jointto which I myself have made a number of mechanical improvements. It serves to stick bills to the under-sides of bridges, for the water-trade. We are an entrepreneurial line in my family, sir. Not easily put out of countenance."
"A lot of good all that will do you when London's reduced to ashes," Mallory said. "Why, you're helping the scoundrel in his anarchistic plottings!"
"I should say you have that straight-backwards. Dr. Mallory," the King said, with an odd little chuckle. "Last I saw, the fellow was paying his money into my pockets, and not vice-versa. Now that I think on it, he's consigned a number of bills to my safe-keepingright along the top row, here." The King stood, yanked the documents down, cast them onto his padded floor. "You see, sir, it don't really matter a hang what nonsense is blithered and babbled on these bills! The secret truth is, that bills is endless by their very nature, regular as the tides in the Thames, or the smoke of London. London's true sons call London 'The Smoke,' you know. She's an eternal city, like your Jerusalem, or Rome, or, some would say, Satan's Pandemonium! You don't see the King of the Bill-Stickers worrying for smoky London, do you? Not a bit of it!"
"But the people have fled!"
"A passing foolishness. They'll all be back," said the King, with sublime confidence. "Why, they have no place else to go. This is the center of the world, sir."
Mallory fell silent.
"So, sir," proclaimed the King, "if you was to take my advice, you'd spend six shillings on that roll of bills you're clutching. Why, for one pound even, I'll toss in these other misprinted bills of our friend Captain Swing's. Twenty simple shillings, sir, and you may leave these streets, and rest at home in peace and quiet."
"Some of these bills have already been posted," Mallory said.
"I could have the lads black-wash 'emor paste 'em over, anyhow," the King mused. "If you was willing to make it worth their while, of course."
"Would that put an end to the matter?" said Mallory, reaching for his pocket-book. "I doubt it."
"A better end than any you can make with that pistol I see peeping from your trouser-band," said the King. "That is an item which cannot do a gentleman and scholar any credit."
Mallory said nothing.
"Heed my counsel, Dr. Mallory, and put that gun away before you do yourself a mischief. I do believe you might have hurt one of my lads, if I hadn't spied that gun through my peep-hole, and stepped out to set things right. Go home, sir, and cool your head."
"Why aren't you at home, if you truly mean that advice?" Mallory said.
"Why, this is my home, sir," said the King. He tucked Mallory's money into his shooting-jacket. "On pleasant days my old woman and I take our tea in here, and talk about old times and walls, and embankments, and hoardings "