As a matter of fact, he witnessed the football match
from the ordinary stands, surrounded by thousands of unsuspecting
Britons, but carefully wedged in between two generals of his own army
and flanked by a minister of police, a minister of the treasury and a
minister of war, all of whom were excessively bored by the contest
and more or less appalled by his unregal enthusiasm. He had insisted
on going to the match incog, to enjoy it for all it was worth to the
real spectators--those who sit or stand where the compression is not
unlike that applied to a box of sardines.
The regency expired when he was twenty years of age, and he became
ruler in fact, of himself as well as of the half-million subjects who
had waited patiently for the great day that was to see him crowned
and glorified. Not one was there in that goodly half million who
stood out against him on that triumphant day; not one who possessed a
sullen or resentful heart. He was their Prince, and they loved him
well. After that wonderful coronation day he would never forget that
he was a Prince or that the hearts of a half million were to throb
with love for him so long as he was man as well as Prince.
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