Consider for a moment the romance which underlies
the most ordinary game. You push out the king’s
pawn and your opponent does the same. It is plain
(is it not?) that these are the heralds, meeting at
the border-line between the two kingdoms—Ivoria
and Ebonia, let us say. There I have my first
chapter: The history of the dispute, the challenge
by Ivoria, the acceptance of the challenge by Ebonia.
Chapter Two describes the sallying forth of the knights—“Kt
to KB3, Kt to QB3.” In the next chapter
the bishop gains the queen’s ear and suggests
that he should take the field. He is no fighter,
but he has the knack of excommunicating. The
queen, a young and beautiful widow, with an infant
son, consents ("B to QB4"), and set about removing
her child to a place of safety. She invokes the
aid of Roqueblanc, an independent chieftain, who,
spurred on by love for her, throws all his forces
on to her side, offering at the same time his well-guarded
fastness as a sanctuary for her boy. ("Castles.”)
Then the queen musters all her own troops and leads
them into battle by the side of the Baron Roqueblanc....
But I must not tell you the whole story now.
You can imagine for yourself some of the more exciting
things which happen. You can picture, for instance,
that vivid chapter in which the young king, at a moment
when his very life is threatened by an Ebonian baron,
is saved by the self-sacrifices of Roqueblanc, who
hurls himself in front of the royal youth’s
person and himself falls a victim, to be avenged immediately
by a watchful man-at-arms. You can follow, if
you will, the further adventures of that man-at-arms,
up to that last chapter when he marries the still
beautiful queen, and henceforward acts in her name,
taking upon himself a power similar to her own.
In fact, you can write the book yourself. But
if you do not care to do this, let me beg you at least
to bring a little imagination to the next game which
you play. Then whether you win or (as is more
likely) you lose, you will at least be worthy of the
Game of Kings.
Fixtures and Fittings
There was once a young man who decided to be a poodle-clipper.
He felt that he had a natural bent for it, and he
had been told that a fashionable poodle-clipper could
charge his own price for his services. But his
father urged him to seek another profession. “It
is an uncertain life, poodle-clipping,” he said,
“To begin with, very few people keep poodles
at all. Of these few, only a small proportion
wants its poodles clipped. And, of this small
proportion, a still smaller proportion is likely to
want its poodles clipped by you.”
So the young man decided to be a hair-dresser instead.
