My
father's blue velvet mantle was imposing, and he certainly had plumes;
but to my great chagrin he was not wearing one single scrap of armour,
had no iron saucepan on his head, and was not even carrying a gigantic
lance. It seemed to be the same with everything else. In my
illustrated _History_ there was a picture of the Barons forcing
King John to sign Magna Charta at Runnymede. They had beards, and wore
long velvet dressing-gowns, with lovely, long, pointed shoes, and
carried swords nearly as big as themselves. I asked my governess if
there were any barons left, and she told me that Lord B----, a great
friend of my family's, was a baron. This was dreadful. Lord B---- was
dressed like any one else, had no beard, and instead of beautiful long
shoes shaped like toothpicks, with flapping, pointed toes, he had
ordinary everyday boots. He never wore a velvet dressing-gown or
carried a big sword, and no one could possibly imagine him as coercing
King John, or indeed any one else, to do anything they did not want to
do. I asked to see a noble; I was told that I met them every day at
luncheon. Like all properly constituted boys I longed to live on an
island. I was told that I already enjoyed that privilege. It really
was a most disappointing world!
To remedy this state of things, and as a protest against the prosaic
age in which we lived, my youngest brother and I devised some strictly
private dramas.
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