A Queer Race: The Story of a Strange People — page 103: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

100 -. A QUEER RACE. ing, and so short-winded that it was all he could do to walk up the hill from the lake.” 200 I was deeply stung by this insolence, all the more so as it was impossible in the circumstances to resent it as it deserved. | ‘<So would you be short-winded if you had been. four months at sea, and gone through what I have gone through,” I said, warmly. ‘‘ But wait——” “You forget where you are and to whom you are speaking, Amyas,” interposed the queen, severely. ‘* Re- member that Mr. Erle is our guest; and as for shortness of sight—well, sharp eyes are quite compatible with a shallow mind.” Mr. Fane collapsed. ‘‘T infer from what you say, Mr. Erie, that your voy- age has been an eventful one—that you have undergone great hardships. I want you to tell me all about it, and how you discovered the Fair Island, and made the pas- sage of the Painted Rocks. No ship ever did it before. When I saw you cast anchor in the bay this morning I could hardly believe my eyes.” ‘‘Willingly, your majesty. It is rather a sad story, but ” Here her majesty broke into a merry laugh, Mr. Field seemed amused, and Fane smiled sardonic- ally. ‘“Why do you say ‘ majesty?’”’ asked Mab, when she had done laughing. ‘* Because in addressing a crowned head it is the right thing to say. Atleast, I have always supposed so, though I freely admit I never spoke to a crowned head before, and know nothing of the etiquette of courts.” ‘Crowned head is good,” said Mad, laughing again; better than ‘ majesty,’ | think. But you are mistaken. J am neither a crowned head nor a majesty.” «Then these gentlemen misinformed me,” I said, feel- ing both foolish and vexed. ‘‘'They always speak of you as queen—Queen Mab.” “So I am ”—proudly—‘‘in the sense that I am chief of the state, but that makes me neither a majesty nor a crowned head. ‘There are neither crowns nor courtiers in Fair Island, and there is nothing I should more detest than to be addressed in terms of fulsome, and therefore insincere compliment. ‘ Majesty,’ indeed! Lut more of Eomichbooks.com