sap the manliness out of a man and make him a loyal and proper and approved subject and a satisfaction to his masters, or the very infants will know you for better than your disguise, and we shall go to pieces at the first hut we stop at. Pray try to walk like this." The king took careful note, and then tried an imitation. "Pretty fair--pretty fair. Chin a little lower, please-there, very good. Eyes too high; pray don't look at the horizon, look at the ground, ten steps in front of you. Ah--that is better, that is very good. Wait, please; you betray too much vigor, too much decision; you want more of a shamble. Look at me, please--this is what I mean. . . . Now you are get- ting it; that is the idea--at least, it sort of approaches it. . . . Yes, that is pretty fair. But! There is a great big something wanting, I don't quite know what it is. Please walk thirty yards, so that I can get a perspective on the thing. . . . now, then--your head's right, speed's right, shoulders right, eyes right, chin right, gait, carriage, general style right--every- thing's right! And yet the fact remains, the aggre- gate's wrong. The account don't balance. Do it again, please. . . . 6now I think I begin to see what it is. Yes, I've struck it. You see, the genuine spirit- lessness is wanting; that's what's the trouble. It's all amateur--mechanical details all right, almost to a hair; everything about the delusion perfect, except that it don't delude." "What, then, must one do, to prevail?" "Let me think. . . . I can't seem to quite get at it. In fact, there isn't anything that can right the -275- |