Chapter Three

‘What a good boy!’ said a voice from somewhere high above, and man and dog looked up to see the Queen leaning out of an upstairs window.

The black-moustached footman snapped to attention at sight of Her Majesty, while Titus wagged his rump on seeing the woman who, Mum had told him, was their servant.

‘Leave the puppy there, John,’ called the Queen. ‘I’m coming right down,’ and in a few moments she came out of the door on to the lawn, and bent down to stroke Titus and pat him and rub the roots of his ears, something that he found very pleasant.

‘Lucky for you that you didn’t do all that on my carpets,’ said the Queen. ‘You would have been a most unpopular pup.’ Then she picked Titus up and held him before her face and looked into his eyes.

Most animals, dogs included, cannot bear the direct stare of a human being for long and will look away. But Titus stared back into the Royal eyes, flattening his ears with pleasure and wrinkling his lips in a sort of grin. She seems nice, this Queen person, he thought, and at that instant Her Majesty spoke to him once again.

‘Titus, my boy,’ said the Queen, ‘I have a funny feeling that you are going to be a very special dog.’

At that moment there came another voice, a deep voice, from the upstairs window, and Titus looked up to see the Duke of Edinburgh leaning out.

‘Telephone, Madge!’ he called.

‘Well, answer it, Philip, can’t you?’

‘I have done. It’s for you.’

‘I’m busy,’ replied the Queen, continuing to stroke Titus. ‘Who is it, anyway?’

‘It’s the Prime Minister.’

‘Bother!’ said the Queen. ‘One wishes sometimes,’ she said to Titus as she carried him upstairs, ‘that one was not continually pestered by politicians ringing one up in one’s own home. I daresay you’d be surprised to know, for instance, that what is called the Queen’s Speech is not mine at all. The whole thing’s written by my government, which actually isn’t mine anyway. I tell you, Titus, being Queen is a dog’s life.’

Back in the great drawing room, Prissy was getting worried. ‘Titus has been gone an awful long time,’ she said to the others. ‘I hope he’s not got into any trouble.’

In reply, the bitches among the corgis said helpful things like ‘Of course not, dear, he’ll be back in a minute, you’ll see,’ and the dogs made unhelpful remarks such as ‘Ah well, boys will be boys,’ and ‘Let’s hope the Prince of Wales doesn’t come visiting with those terriers of his – they won’t half knock the lad about.’

So it was with great relief that at last Prissy saw the door open and the Queen enter, carrying Titus, and she ran forward whining anxiously. The Queen put the puppy down on the carpet, and his mother licked his ear.

‘Where have you been all this time?’ she asked him. ‘Mummy’s been worrying.’

‘I’ve been with our servant,’ Titus said.

‘Our servant? Oh – oh, you mean Her Majesty?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry, Prissy,’ the Queen said. ‘I would have brought him back sooner, but I had to answer a phone call, and a very long phone call it was too. Politicians are all the same, they love the sound of their own voices.’ She rang a bell and another footman appeared, this time a red-headed one.

‘Biscuits, please, Patrick,’ she said.

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ said the footman. ‘What kind, ma’am?’

‘Custard creams. Oh, and two chocolate digestives.’

The Queen sat down in her armchair, and when the biscuits came she fed the custard creams to Prissy and the other eight adult dogs, but offered nothing to Titus.

What about me? he thought, and he moved towards the Royal legs. Mustn’t scratch at ’em, he thought to himself, I might ladder the Royal stockings. But I would like to know if there are any biscuits left on that plate, and in an effort to see, he sat bolt upright on his fat little bottom, his front paws held out imploringly before him.

‘That,’ said the Queen, ‘is an extremely clever thing to do. Never before have I had a corgi that could manage that trick – they always fall over backwards. Now something that my great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria was fond of saying was “We are not amused.” But I must tell you, Titus, that we are amused.’ And she broke the two chocolate digestives into pieces and carefully fed them to the young corgi who, had either of them known it, was destined to become the most famous dog in the land.