But to return to my anomalous position in King Arthur’s
kingdom. Here I was, a giant among pigmies, a
man among children, a master intelligence among intellectual
moles: by all rational measurement the one and
only actually great man in that whole British world;
and yet there and then, just as in the remote England
of my birth-time, the sheep-witted earl who could
claim long descent from a king’s leman, acquired
at second-hand from the slums of London, was a better
man than I was. Such a personage was fawned
upon in Arthur’s realm and reverently looked
up to by everybody, even though his dispositions were
as mean as his intelligence, and his morals as base
as his lineage. There were times when he
could sit down in the king’s presence, but I
couldn’t. I could have got a title easily
enough, and that would have raised me a large step
in everybody’s eyes; even in the king’s,
the giver of it. But I didn’t ask for
it; and I declined it when it was offered. I
couldn’t have enjoyed such a thing with my notions;
and it wouldn’t have been fair, anyway, because
as far back as I could go, our tribe had always been
short of the bar sinister. I couldn’t have
felt really and satisfactorily fine and proud and
set-up over any title except one that should come from
the nation itself, the only legitimate source; and
such an one I hoped to win; and in the course of years
of honest and honorable endeavor, I did win it and
did wear it with a high and clean pride. This
title fell casually from the lips of a blacksmith,
one day, in a village, was caught up as a happy thought
and tossed from mouth to mouth with a laugh and an
affirmative vote; in ten days it had swept the kingdom,
and was become as familiar as the king’s name.
I was never known by any other designation afterward,
whether in the nation’s talk or in grave debate
upon matters of state at the council-board of the
sovereign. This title, translated into modern
speech, would be THE BOSS. Elected by the nation.
That suited me. And it was a pretty high title.
There were very few THE’S, and I was one of
them. If you spoke of the duke, or the earl,
or the bishop, how could anybody tell which one you
meant? But if you spoke of The King or The Queen
or The Boss, it was different.
Well, I liked the king, and as king I respected him—respected
the office; at least respected it as much as I was
capable of respecting any unearned supremacy; but
as MEN I looked down upon him and his nobles—privately.
And he and they liked me, and respected my office;
but as an animal, without birth or sham title, they
looked down upon me—and were not particularly
private about it, either. I didn’t charge
for my opinion about them, and they didn’t charge
for their opinion about me: the account was square,
the books balanced, everybody was satisfied.
