“I don’t know as I’d care so much, Dad. I’d rather live in Grand Republic than in a drafty old palace.”

“Well, so would I, for that matter. I bet none of them have automatic furnaces. But I just mean it would be kind of nice if, while we went right on sticking to business here, we could know that by rights—maybe—we’re really the kings of England. It would tickle your mother and Joan and Vestal and some day Biddy. And I don’t guess it would hurt your position in the bank one bit if Mr. Prutt realized what kind of a high-born guy he had working for him. If it’s true!

“The theory is that by the true line of descent, I’m the king of Britain, and you would be my successor. Of course I suppose your brother could claim to be Prince of Wales, but (if the thing were true), I don’t know but what I’d ask Robert to step aside, as he certainly ought to, fellow with no imagination like that, and I do wish to God he would quit referring to my really very fine collection of Florida seashells, as ‘that junk’!

“Well, here’s the dope. I was told about it by my father, William, who may not have been any great shakes as a royal monarch but he certainly was the smartest farmer and horsetrader in Blue Earth County. He had the story from his father, Daniel Kingsblood, the Civil War one, and he had it in turn from his father, Henry Aragon Kingsblood, who was born in Kent, England, in 1797, and emigrated to New Jersey, after having been arrested for publicly claiming, at a state fair or whatever they had in those days in England, that he was the Legitimate Monarch of Great Britain and Ireland—and I suppose all these Realms Beyond the Sea, whatever they are. He’d of been King Henry the Ninth. And born right there in England that way, maybe he knew—maybe it’s true! How’s that?”

“Well, it’s interesting, but I don’t suppose we could prove it, even if it was true.”

“That’s what I’m coming to. I notice that, now your leg keeps you from going out for sports, you read a lot more than you used to. So maybe it would amuse you to look into this. I’d kind of like to know about it, before I pass on.

“We haven’t a scrap of written proof. I always intended to try and check the facts, but I’ve been awful busy, and household cares and so on, and all of us dentists overworked, with so many of the profession in the armed services, and here lately it seems as if people have no consideration about a dentist’s schedule and think you can work ‘em in any time, especially these young punks home from school on vacation. If you let ‘em, they’d simply work a dentist to death, and then never pay their bills, and so—I never got the time. But here’s what happened, the way I got it.