It would also be a good idea to add five hundred officers to it; in fact, add as many officers as there were nobles and relatives of nobles in the country, even if there should finally be five times as many officers as privates in it; and thus make it the crack regiment, the envied regiment, the King's Own regiment, and entitled to fight on its own hook and in its own way, and go whither it would and come when it pleased, in time of war, and be utterly swell and independent.
This would make that regiment the heart's desire of all the nobility, and they would all be satisfied and happy.

Then we would make up the rest of the standing army out of commonplace materials, and officer it with nobodies, as was proper--nobodies selected on a basis of mere efficiency--and we would make this regiment toe the line, allow it no aristocratic freedom from restraint, and force it to do all the work and persistent hammering, to the end that whenever the King's Own was tired and wanted to go off for a change and rummage around amongst ogres and have a good time, it could go without uneasiness, knowing that matters were in safe hands behind it, and business going to be continued at the old stand, same as usual.

The king was charmed with the idea.
When I noticed that, it gave me a valuable notion.

I thought I saw my way out of an old and stubborn difficulty at last.

You see, the royalties of the Pendragon stock were a long-lived race and very fruitful.