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There was a Canadian journalist and poet once who was so impressed with the news that the Ahkoond was dead, so bowed down with regret that he had never known the Ahkoond while alive, that he forthwith wrote a poem in memory of The Ahkoond of Swat.
The barbaric gorgeousnesses, for instance; and the princely titles, the sumptuous titles, the sounding titles, how good they taste in the mouth! The Nizam of Hyderabad; the Maharajah of Travancore; the Nabob of Jubbelpore; the Begum of Bhopal; the Nawab of Mysore; the Ranee of Gulnare; the Ahkoond of Swat's; the Rao of Rohilkund; the Gaikwar of Baroda.
That evening at the hour of 23 I set up my aerial isochronophone and reported to his gracious Majesty the Ahkoond as follows: This satire was published in the San Francisco Examiner many years before the invention of wireless telegraphy; so I retain my own name for the instrument. "Sire: I have the honor to report that I have made a startling discovery.
My allegiance to republican institutions is slack through lack of faith in them as a practical system of governing men as men are. All the same, I will call no man "Your Majesty," nor "Your Lordship." For me to meet in my own country a king or a nobleman would require as much preliminary negotiation as an official interview between the Mufti of Moosh and the Ahkoond of Swat.
There is a distinct sensation in the House at the realisation that the Ahkoond has been dead a month without the House having known that he was alive. Then the cables take up the refrain and word is flashed all over the world, The Ahkoond of Swat is Dead.
The Ahkoond replied that he was pleased to feel the most poignant grief for the fate of the unfortunate Pukes, and if I should by chance find the ancient king of the country I was to do my best to revive him with the patent resuscitator and present him the assurances of his Majesty's distinguished consideration; but as the politoscope showed that the nation had been a republic I gave myself no trouble in the matter.
The last one of them perished about the year 1943, and may God have mercy on his fool soul!" To this dispatch the Ahkoond replied that it was the royal opinion that the Smugwumps were served very well right.
I waited therefore and watched the papers to see if anything interesting might happen to the Ahkoond of Swat or the Sandjak of Novi Bazar or any other native potentate. Within a couple of days I got what I wanted in the following item, which I need hardly say is taken word for word from the Press despatches: "Perim, via Bombay.
When the Inquiring Soul had completed his course of instruction he declared himself the Ahkoond of Swat, fell into the baleful habit of standing on his head, and swore that the mother who bore him was a pragmatic paralogism.
The death of the Ahkoond of Swat, and whether Great Britain should support as his successor Mustalpha El Djin or Kamu Flaj, there is something worth talking of over an afternoon tea table. But suppose that the whole of the Manitoba Grain Growers were to die. What could one say about it? They'd be dead, that's all. So it is that people all over the world turn to English politics with interest.
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