Chapter XXVIII: Drilling the King

by Mark Twain

　　On the morning of the fourth day, when it was justsunrise, and we had been tramping an hour inthe chill dawn, I came to a resolution: the king mustbe drilled; things could not go on so, he must betaken in hand and deliberately and conscientiouslydrilled, or we couldn't ever venture to enter a dwelling;the very cats would know this masquerader for a humbug and no peasant. So I called a halt and said:"Sire, as between clothes and countenance, you areall right, there is no discrepancy; but as between yourclothes and your bearing, you are all wrong, there is amost noticeable discrepancy. Your soldierly stride,your lordly port -- these will not do. You stand toostraight, your looks are too high, too confident. Thecares of a kingdom do not stoop the shoulders, they donot droop the chin, they do not depress the high levelof the eye-glance, they do not put doubt and fear inthe heart and hang out the signs of them in slouchingbody and unsure step. It is the sordid cares of thelowly born that do these things. You must learn thetrick; you must imitate the trademarks of poverty,misery, oppression, insult, and the other several andcommon inhumanities that sap the manliness out of aman and make him a loyal and proper and approvedsubject and a satisfaction to his masters, or the veryinfants will know you for better than your disguise,and we shall go to pieces at the first hut we stop at.Pray try to walk like this."The king took careful note, and then tried animitation."Pretty fair -- pretty fair. Chin a little lower,please -- there, very good. Eyes too high; pray don'tlook at the horizon, look at the ground, ten steps infront of you. Ah -- that is better, that is very good.Wait, please; you betray too much vigor, too muchdecision; you want more of a shamble. Look at me,please -- this is what I mean......Now you are getting it; that is the idea -- at least, it sort of approachesit......Yes, that is pretty fair. But! There is agreat big something wanting, I don't quite know whatit is. Please walk thirty yards, so that I can geta perspective on the thing......Now, then -- yourhead's right, speed's right, shoulders right, eyes right,chin right, gait, carriage, general style right -- everything's right! And yet the fact remains, the aggregate's wrong. The account don't balance. Do itagain, please......now I think I begin to see what itis. Yes, I've struck it. You see, the genuine spiritlessness is wanting; that's what's the trouble. It's allamatueur -- mechanical details all right, almost to ahair; everything about the delusion perfect, exceptthat it don't delude.""What, then, must one do, to prevail?""Let me think......I can't seem to quite get at it.In fact, there isn't anything that can right the matterbut practice. This is a good place for it: roots andstony ground to break up your stately gait, a regionnot liable to interruption, only one field and one hut insight, and they so far away that nobody could see usfrom there. It will be well to move a little off theroad and put in the whole day drilling you, sire."After the drill had gone on a little while, I said:"Now, sire, imagine that we are at the door of thehut yonder, and the family are before us. Proceed,please -- accost the head of the house."The king unconsciously straightened up like a monument, and said, with frozen austerity:"Varlet, bring a seat; and serve to me what cheerye have.""Ah, your grace, that is not well done.""In what lacketh it?""These people do not call each other varlets.""Nay, is that true?""Yes; only those above them call them so.""Then must I try again. I will call him villein.""No-no; for he may be a freeman.""Ah -- so. Then peradventure I should call himgoodman.""That would answer, your grace, but it would bestill better if you said friend, or brother.""Brother! -- to dirt like that?""Ah, but we are pretending to be dirt like that,too.""It is even true. I will say it. Brother, bring aseat, and thereto what cheer ye have, withal. Now'tis right.""Not quite, not wholly right. You have asked forone, not us -- for one, not both; food for one, a seatfor one."The king looked puzzled -- he wasn't a very heavyweight, intellectually. His head was an hour-glass; itcould stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at atime, not the whole idea at once."Would you have a seat also -- and sit?""If I did not sit, the man would perceive that wewere only pretending to be equals -- and playing thedeception pretty poorly, too.""It is well and truly said! How wonderful is truth,come it in whatsoever unexpected form it may! Yes,he must bring out seats and food for both, and inserving us present not ewer and napkin with moreshow of respect to the one than to the other.""And there is even yet a detail that needs correcting. He must bring nothing outside; we will go in --in among the dirt, and possibly other repulsive things,-- and take the food with the household, and after thefashion of the house, and all on equal terms, except theman be of the serf class; and finally, there will be noewer and no napkin, whether he be serf or free. Pleasewalk again, my liege. There -- it is better -- it is thebest yet; but not perfect. The shoulders have knownno ignobler burden than iron mail, and they will notstoop.""Give me, then, the bag. I will learn the spiritthat goeth with burdens that have not honor. It isthe spirit that stoopeth the shoulders, I ween, and notthe weight; for armor is heavy, yet it is a proudburden, and a man standeth straight in it......Nay,but me no buts, offer me no objections. I will havethe thing. Strap it upon my back."He was complete now with that knapsack on, andlooked as little like a king as any man I had ever seen.But it was an obstinate pair of shoulders; they couldnot seem to learn the trick of stooping with any sort ofdeceptive naturalness. The drill went on, I promptingand correcting:"Now, make believe you are in debt, and eaten upby relentless creditors; you are out of work -- whichis horse-shoeing, let us say -- and can get none; andyour wife is sick, your children are crying becausethey are hungry --"And so on, and so on. I drilled him as representing in turn all sorts of people out of luck and sufferingdire privations and misfortunes. But lord, it was onlyjust words, words -- they meant nothing in the worldto him, I might just as well have whistled. Wordsrealize nothing, vivify nothing to you, unless you havesuffered in your own person the thing which the wordstry to describe. There are wise people who talk everso knowingly and complacently about "the workingclasses," and satisfy themselves that a day's hard intellectual work is very much harder than a day's hardmanual toil, and is righteously entitled to much biggerpay. Why, they really think that, you know, becausethey know all about the one, but haven't tried theother. But I know all about both; and so far as I amconcerned, there isn't money enough in the universeto hire me to swing a pickaxe thirty days, but I will dothe hardest kind of intellectual work for just as nearnothing as you can cipher it down -- and I will besatisfied, too.Intellectual "work" is misnamed; it is a pleasure,a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. Thepoorest paid architect, engineer, general, author,sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor,preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he isat work; and as for the musician with the fiddle-bowin his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestrawith the ebbing and flowing tides of divine soundwashing over him -- why, certainly, he is at work, ifyou wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm justthe same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair-- but there it is, and nothing can change it: thehigher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it,the higher shall be his pay in cash, also. And it'salso the very law of those transparent swindles, transmissible nobility and kingship.