"Well, she took liberties, that's all," said Boswell. "For instance, in her 'Side Talks with Men' she had something like this: 'Napoleon-- It is rather difficult to say just what you can do with your last season's cocked-hat. If you were to purchase five yards of one-inch blue ribbon, cut it into three strips of equal length, and fasten one end to each of the three corners of the hat, tying the other ends into a choux, it would make a very acceptable work-basket to send to your grandmother at Christmas.' Now Napoleon never asked that woman for advice on the subject. Then there was an answer to a purely fictitious inquiry from Solomon which read: 'It all depends on local custom. In Salt Lake City, and in London at the time of Henry the Eighth, it was not considered necessary to be off with the old love before being on with the new, but latterly the growth of monopolistic ideas tends towards the uniform rate of one at a time.' A purely gratuitous fling, that was, at one of my most eminent patrons, or rather two of them, for latterly both Solomon and Henry the Eighth have yielded to the tendency of the times and gone into business, which they have paid me well to advertise. Solomon has established an 'Information Bureau,' where advice can always be had from the 'Wise-man,' as he calls himself, on payment of a small fee; while Henry, taking advantage of his superior equipment over any English king that ever lived, has founded and liberally advertised his 'Chaperon Company (Limited).' It's a great thing even in Hades for young people to be chaperoned by an English queen, and Henry has been smart enough to see it, and having seven or eight queens, all in good standing, he has been doing a great business. Just look at it from a business point of view. There are seven nights in every week, and something going on somewhere all the time, and queens in demand. With a queen quoted so low as $100 a night, Henry can make nearly $5000 a week, or $260,000 a year, out of evening chaperonage alone; and when, in addition to this, yachting-parties up the Styx and slumming-parties throughout the country are being constantly given, the man's opportunity to make half a million a year is in plain sight. I'm told that he netted over $500,000 last year; and of course he had to advertise to get it, and this Xanthippe woman goes out of her way to get in a nasty little fling at one of my mainstays for his matrimonial propensities."
"Failing utterly to see," said I, "that, in marrying so many times, Henry really paid a compliment to her *** which is without parallel in royal circles."
"Well, nearly so," said Boswell. "There have been other kings who were quite as complimentary to the ladies, but Henry was the only man among them who insisted on marrying them all."
"True," said I. "Henry was eminently proper--but then he had to be."
"Yes," said Boswell, with a meditative tap on the letter Y. "Yes-- he had to be. He was the head of the Church, you know."
"I know it," I put in. "I've always had a great deal of sympathy for Henry. He has been very much misjudged by posterity. He was the father of the really first new woman, Elizabeth, and his other daughter, Mary, was such a vindictive person."
"You are a very fair man, for an American," said Boswell. "Not only fair, but rare. You think about things."
"I try to," said I, modestly. "And I've really thought a great deal about Henry, and I've truly seen a valid reason for his continuous matrimonial performances. He set himself up against the Pope, and he had to be consistent in his antagonism."
"He did, indeed," said Boswell. "A religious discussion is a hard one."
"And Henry was consistent in his opposition," said I. "He didn't yield a jot on any point, and while a great many people criticise him on the score of his wives--particularly on their number--I feel that I have in very truth discovered his principle."
"Which was?" queried Boswell.
"That the Pope was wrong in all things," said I.
"So he said," commented Boswell.
"And being wrong in all things, celibacy was wrong," said I.
"Exactly," ejaculated Boswell.
"Well, then," said I, "if celibacy is wrong, the surest way to protest against it is to marry as many times as you can."
"By Jove!" said Boswell, tapping the keys yearningly, as though he wished he might spare his hand to shake mine, "you are a man after my own heart."