Chapter III—The Great Army of South Kensington
The article from the special correspondent of the Court Journal arrived in due course, written on very coarse copy-paper in the King's arabesque of handwriting, in which three words filled a page, and yet were illegible. Moreover, the contribution was the more perplexing at first as it opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writer appeared to have attempted the article once or twice in several journalistic styles. At the side of one experiment was written, "Try American style," and the fragment began—
"The King must go. We want gritty men. Flapdoodle is all very . . . ;" and then broke off, followed by the note, "Good sound journalism safer. Try it."
The experiment in good sound journalism appeared to begin—
"The greatest of English poets has said that a rose by any . . . "
This also stopped abruptly. The next annotation at the side was almost undecipherable, but seemed to be something like—
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