'I wish we were back in Claremont Square,' said he.
'So do I, I'm sure,' said Eliza. 'Though I don't know where it is, nor yet want to know.'
'Hush!' said Billy suddenly. 'I hear a rustling. It's the Prime Minister, and I can hear he's got straws in his hair again, most likely because you're disappeared, and he thinks he will have to cook the breakfast. Meet me beside the lighthouse at four this afternoon. Hide in this summer-house and don't come out till the coast's clear.'
He ran out and took the Prime Minister's arm.
'Merely a bad habit,' said the Prime Minister wearily.
'You're a beastly mean, cowardly sneak, and you feel it; that's what the straws are about!'
'Your Majesty!' said the Prime Minister feebly.
'Yes,' said Billy firmly; 'you know you are. Now, I know all the laws of Plurimiregia, and I'm going to abdicate this morning, and the next in rank has to be King if he can't engage a fresh one. You're next in rank to me, so by the time the dragon comes you'll be the King. I'll attend your Coronation.'
The Prime Minister gasped, 'How did you find out?' and turned the colour of unripe peaches.
'That's tellings,' said Billy. 'If you hadn't all been such sneaks, I expect heaps of your Kings had sense enough to have got rid of the dragon for you. Only I suppose you've never told them in time. Now, look here. I don't want you to do anything except keep your mouth shut, and let there be a boat, and no boatman, on the beach under the lighthouse at four o'clock.'
[Illustration: '"Speak to the dragon as soon as it arrives."' Page 263.]
'I said on the beach, not on the sea, my good straw merchant. And what I say you've jolly well got to do. You must be there--and no one else. If you tell a soul I'll abdicate, and where will you be then?'
'I don't know,' said the wretched Prime Minister, stooping to gather some more straws from the strawberry bed.
'But I do,' said Billy. 'Now for breakfast.'
Before four o'clock that afternoon the Prime Minister's head was a perfect bird's-nest of straws. But he met Billy at the appointed place, and there was a boat--and also Eliza. Billy carried his Lee-Metford.
A wind blew from the shore, and the straws in the Prime Minister's hair rustled like a barley-field in August.