Chapter 7: Prince Arthur Faces Responsibilities

     Here we learn more of Beauteous Kingdom, Prince Arthur, and the prince's upbringing.

     Arthur's father, King Zanidiate, is a compassionate king who cares for his subjects as if they were his children.  He constantly has his finger on the public pulse and makes many decisions for his subjects.

     All this compassion costs a great deal of money, but twelve powerful magicians have that matter in hand.  They create gold and silver by putting magic words on slips of paper.  As long as no one has the temerity to actually look into the royal treasury, the gold and silver keeps piling up.  Only the magicians are allowed to see all this gold and silver.

     Beauteous Kingdom is also blessed by lesser magicians called happiness counters.  By means of magic words such as kurtosis and regression analysis, these magicians are able to count things that no one else can count, such as happiness. People who feign unhappiness are discounted as "outliars;" that is, people who can out lie almost anyone else.  Consequently, the happiness counters can display their "like-it scales" and prove that nearly everyone in Beauteous Kingdom is either deliriously happy with the way the kingdom is run, or at least they "like it."

     Prince Arthur has several tutors.  Most of them give the prince royalty lessons such as how to listen to the concerns of the people of the kingdom and come up with just the right response that will make them feel good about the royal family.  

     Another tutor, the mysterious Bastiat, is useful for instructing Arthur in several scientific and social subjects. On the other hand, Arthur is warned to be on his guard against some of Bastiat's dangerous views on certain other subjects, such as government's proper relationship with the people.

     Arthur's father asks him what qualities his bride (when the time comes) should have.  Arthur named nine qualities: a friend, noble birth, similarity of religious views, and also that she be alive, human, female, unmarried, of marriageable age, and in her right mind.

     Arthur's father says that the first eight could be arranged easily enough for Arthur, but he wasn't sure that a woman in her right mind would want to marry him.

     The primary purpose of newspapers in Beauteous Kingdom was to sell advertising.  Consistent with this purpose, news articles tended to be slanted toward advertisers and against businesses that didn't advertise in that paper.  Since every newspaper must depend on sources for news, papers avoided printing anything unfavorable to their sources.  

     The purpose of competing newspapers was to show the public the limits of acceptable thought and discussion.

     While Arthur is sitting in his favorite spot, communing with nature in a quiet place called Audrey Meadows, an assassin tries to shoot Arthur.  At the last second, animals of the meadow intervene and cause the would-be assassin to harm himself.  Over the years, the same assassin tries many times to kill Arthur; and every time, he ends up harming himself.