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Updated: June 6, 2025
Donovan was, I believe, relieved when he heard that he could not buy the whole kingdom of Megalia. The price would have been enormous, but he would not have hesitated to pay it if, by paying, he would have got what he wanted. The more he looked into the business of kingship, the less he liked it. The idea of Court etiquette worried him.
But I am not a whale on the sea of Real Politik. Your whale is a fish that bores, always. Perhaps if you ask Fritz he will know." "By the way," said Donovan, "what's the man's real name?" "Once," said the King, "he was Calmet, M. de Calmet. At that time he was French. Later he was Heyduk, a Captain in the army of Megalia. Also he was Freidwig, and he came from Stockholm.
The island isn't worth having. As well as I can make out it's simply a rock with a little clay sprinkled on top of it. What can it matter to the Emperor who owns the place? It isn't as if it were his originally or as if it would become his. It belongs to Megalia. With all the fuss that's being made you'd think there was a gold mine there."
He made a long speech about the sacred cause of European civilisation, and the supremely important part which the King of Megalia was called upon to play in securing victory and lasting peace. He also talked about the rights of small nationalities. King Konrad Karl rose to the same level of lofty sentiment in his reply.
The library of the House of Commons was useless to him. A belief existed among certain city men interested in mining speculation, that there was copper in the mountains of Megalia; but no one had any exact information on the subject. Longwood, the Balkan correspondent of the New York Press, was in London at this time, and Gorman got hold of him.
He was a broad-minded man with no prejudice against ladies like Madame Ypsilante. He had a knowledge of the by-ways of finance which made him very useful to the king; for Konrad Karl, though he lived in Beaufort's Hotel, was by no means a rich man. The Crown revenues of Megalia, never very large, were seized by the Republic at the time of the revolution, and the king had no private fortune.
"Say no more," said the King, "not a word. I go to pay my respects. I bow. I abase myself. I am a king. It is true. But I have no money, only a little, a very little left. He is not a king, but he has money. Gorman, I am not a Bourbon. I am able to learn and forget. He who can write a cheque is a greater man than he who can confer the Order of the Pink Vulture of Megalia. I have learned that.
"If there's anything I can do to help you " said Gorman. "A crisis is nothing to me. I have lived all my life in the middle of one. That's the worst of Ireland. Crisis is her normal condition." "I think " Sir Bartholomew lowered his voice although there was no one in the room to overhear him. "I think, Mr. Gorman, that you are acquainted with the present King of Megalia."
You'll find when you ask him that he'll simply refuse to part with the island." "But," said the King, "he must. As I have just said to Corinne, when the devil drives the horse to water it needs must take a drink. The Emperor has said that Salissa is once more to return to the Crown of Megalia."
Three days later it was announced in most of the London papers that the King of Megalia had bestowed the Order of the Pink Vulture on Sir Bland Potterton, His Majesty's Minister for Balkan Affairs, in recognition of his services to the Allied cause in the Near East. Sir Bland Potterton was in Roumania when the announcement appeared and he did not hear of his new honour for nearly three weeks.
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