His courtesies were charities; his politeness was a boon; he tossed his jokes into a crowd of dirty employes as he would toss a handful of silver coin.

Up to this time he had been sufficient unto himself.

By money, by petty revenges, by personal assumption, he had managed to retain his throne for a long decade; and when he found his power partly ignored and partly defied, and learned that his personal courtesies were not accepted at their old value, he not only began to feel lonesome, but he grew angry.

He held hot discussions with his image in the mirror night after night, in his lonely library, where a certain measure which had once seemed a distant possibility took shape more and more as a purpose.

In some way he would revenge himself upon the people of the town.