It had been ten business days since the King passed away when the Butler appeared and said, “Did you know there’s a dog on the patio?”

The Majordomo grabbed a handful of the Butler’s collar and yanked him into a side-room. “Keep your voice down!”

The Maid had fainted, supported now by the three Carriagemen. The Cook, who’d recently had been heralded for his dramatic victory over a food addiction, was eating donuts and fried chicken and looking at the floor. The Herald, who’d done the heralding, drank scotch and talked to himself.

The Butler felt fear shoot through him. “What’s going on?”

“A major emergency.” The Majordomo peeled the curtain back just one eye’s worth, peeked through the window. The dog was still there, poised as the Sphinx. He lay there on the sun-baked Royal Patio and ear-flicked a fly away, legs splayed to warm his parts better, presumably.

The dog levered his heavy gaze toward the window, prompting the Majordomo to wrench the curtain closed. “A very… major…” The Majordomo searched for a word bigger than major. “A majordomo emergency.”

“A dog?”

“That dog is your king!” shouted the Majordomo, and the Butler froze. With no heirs from the King, the Majordomo was to be coronated the following day. The stress, it seemed, was getting to him.

“He says he is, anyway,” continued the Majordomo. “It’s hard to know. He arrived this morning, and plopped himself down on the lawn minutes after. When I came to shoo him, he just looked at me and said — said, you understand, he spoke — ‘Good morning, M.D. Bring my paper round, would you?’”

“The dog talks?” said the Butler.

“The dog talks and reads the paper,” said the Majordomo. “Then he pooped on it and looked at me quite expectantly.”

“He made me clean it up!” squawked the Maid, suddenly roused. “Demon-poo!”

“Silence, Maid!” shouted the Majordomo. “He might hear you!”

“What should we do about it?” asked the Butler.

“I do not want to be King,” said the Majordomo. “But I cannot step aside and let a dog ascend the throne.” He clutched the Butler’s waistcoat. “You knew the King best,” he said. “Go talk to him. Suss it out.”

“Suss it out?”

The dog scrunched his eyebrows and yawned as the Butler approached.

“Hallo,” said the dog, which wasn’t quite speaking, but making a kind of scratchy “har-rumph” sound that came across clear enough.

In ourselves we are all still ten years old, and that was lucky, because the ten-year-old inside the Butler had no trouble believing in a dog that could talk. The part of his brain that did taxes and watched his weight fainted instantly.

“You’re taking a lot of liberties with our patio, Mr. Dog,” said the Butler.

“My patio,” said the dog. “I’m the King.”

“How can you be the King? You’re a dog.”

“Divine right,” said the dog.

Matchpoint. Arguing divine right was a bit like claiming “dibs.” Historians might laugh over it centuries later, but in the right moment and done correctly, it carried the weight of law.

“How do you explain this then?” asked the Butler.

“The King’s reborn,” said the dog. “Long live the King.”

“But the king only passed ten business days ago and here you are, already a grown dog!”

The dog nipped at its own paw, sighed, and said, “Don’t make me debate the math of it, James, I’ve no head for it.”

“Why didn’t you get rid of it?!” shouted the Majordomo.

“It’s the King,” said James the Butler.

There are actually many advantages to having a canine King. As it happened, dogs seem to be born without the desire for conquest (which the King had suffered from a bit) but they will defend to the death the territory they already have. The end result is a very safe, very stable community where young men aren’t worried about going off to war every moment. Neighboring kingdoms would try occasionally to declare war, but emissaries had trouble looking into the King’s soft, blinking eyes and declaring anything. The King would offer them a biscuit and they usually went home a bit embarrassed.

Of course, Time has nothing to do with itself but move on, and one day, old and white, the King died, again. The staff was very upset, having had a second lease on their friendship with him, and coming to like him much more the second time around.

Then, ten business days later, a tiny, very prim lizard crawled on the patio and began sunning itself.

“This is getting ridiculous,” said the Butler, quite old by now.

“You’re telling me,” croaked the lizard. “‘Divine right,’ indeed.”