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(b) doing so would not be expensive.

(c) did not show any sign of running away.

When the criminal told the ministers that he had nowhere to go and no work to do, they offered him a pension of 600 francs and sent him away. The criminal received one-third of his annuity in advance and emigrated to another country just across the frontier. There he bought a bit of land and started market-gardening. He visited the gaming tables and staked two or three francs, sometimes winning and sometimes losing. He lived comfortably and peaceably like the others.

The king offered a pension of 600 francs to the criminal.

The guard who was appointed to keep watch over the prisoner brought food for him from the palace kitchen.

The Minister of Justice asked the prisoner why he did not run away as there was no guard to watch over him. He also told him that the king would not mind if he escaped. But the prisoner told him that he had nowhere to go as his character had been ruined and the people would turn their backs on him. Furthermore, as he had been given food in the prison itself and by doing so he had been prevented from doing any work to earn his living, he had become lazy. Therefore, he refused to go away. He was also feeling bad that he had been treated badly. The ministers met once more and discussed the matter seriously. It struck them that the only way to get rid of him was to offer him a pension.

Not only would the criminal get some money to feed himself as long as he was alive, but there would not also be any need to worry about him any more. That is why the council decided to offer the criminal a pension. The criminal received one-third of his annuity in advance and emigrated to another country just across the frontier. There he bought a bit of land and started market gardening. He visited the gaming tables and staked two or three francs, sometimes winning and sometimes losing. He lived comfortably and peaceably like the others.

The King of Italy.

The prisoner bought a bit of land and started market-gardening.

The council suggested that the criminal’s head be cut off as directed by law.

No, I do not agree with the statement, “The King of Monaco is a man without a decisive stand” because there is enough evidence to prove that he had to act according to the needs of the situation. 

The King of Monaco kept changing his mind in dealing with the criminal because, every time he took a decision, he faced a problem to execute it. First, the king accepted the judge’s verdict and ordered the execution of the criminal, but he cancelled it and changed the sentence to ‘imprisonment for life’ because there was neither a guillotine machine nor an executioner in his country. Moreover, if he had decided to borrow one from the King of Italy, he would have been forced to levy 2 francs per person as additional tax which he did not like. Secondly, after keeping the criminal in prison for one year, he realized that he had to spend 600 francs on the maintenance of the criminal until his death, which would have proved to be again a financial burden to his people.

Therefore, as advised by his council of ministers, he dismissed the guard hoping that the prisoner would run away. But the prisoner refused to run away because he had nowhere to go and he had got out of the habit of working. Once again the king faced a new problem. Then, as suggested by his council of ministers, the king ordered payment of 600 francs a year as pension and got rid of the criminal.

Soon after the king had ordered imprisonment for life as the punishment, the ministers with great difficulty managed to find a place to keep the criminal imprisoned. They put him in it and placed a guard to watch over him. This way the criminal spent one year in prison. This arrangement cost the king 600 francs a year. When the king thought over it, it struck him that the criminal was young and may live for another fifty years. The king became apprehensive about the cost of keeping the criminal imprisoned for life. Therefore, he summoned his ministers and asked them to find a cheaper way of punishing the criminal. The ministers met and discussed the issue and came to the conclusion that the only way to save money was to dismiss the guard. They believed that the criminal would run away and their problem would be solved. The king agreed to their suggestion and the guard was dismissed accordingly.

However, they waited curiously to see what the criminal would do. The criminal came out of his prison at dinner time, collected his food from the palace kitchen, and returned to the prison, shut the door on himself and stayed inside. Later, the Minister of Justice asked him why he had not run away, as there was no guard to watch over him. They even assured him that the prince would not mind his running away. But the prisoner told them that he had nowhere to go as his character had been ruined and people would turn their backs on him. Moreover, he had forgotten the habit of working and so if he ran away he would be forced to work to earn his living. The ministers met once more and discussed the matter seriously. It struck them that the only way to get rid of him was to offer him a pension. The king gave his consent and they finally got rid of him by offering a pension of 600 francs a year. The prisoner received one-third of his annuity in advance and left the king’s dominions. Thus, in spite of all their efforts, the king and his team failed in punishing the criminal.

The story ‘Too Dear!’ exposes the predicament of a ruler who is forced to revise his own judgement not out of mercy but out of financial compulsions. The narrator seems to ridicule the foolishness of rulers who make rules unmindful of the real situation in which they are placed.

Monaco is a tiny kingdom with only seven thousand inhabitants. It has a real kinglet who lives in a palace with courtiers, ministers, a bishop, generals and an army of only sixty men. The king lives by collecting taxes on tobacco, wine and spirits and a poll tax. As the revenue collected from the people is too meagre to feed himself and his people, the king permits a gaming house where people play roulette. From the profits of the gaming house, the king gets a large sum of money.

It so happens that a crime is committed, and the king being the moral authority has to exercise his authority. Herein lies the crux of the whole story. The king behaves like a king of a big kingdom in terms of both money and muscle power and issues a death sentence, which cannot be implemented and instead of punishing the criminal, ends up giving him a pension. This ironical situation is created because of the foolishness of the king. The king ought to have arrived at the final decision only after examining the ground reality.

That is why, the narrator says, “It is a good thing that the criminal committed his crime in Monaco” to ridicule the king because despite being the king he has no power to exercise his authority.

Once, a murder was committed in the Prince’s domains.

The tiny little kingdom called Monaco lies near the borders of France and Italy. There are only about seven thousand inhabitants in it The kingdom is so small that if all the land in the kingdom were divided among its inhabitants, there would not be even an acre of land for each inhabitant. But this toy kingdom has a real kinglet and like any other real king, the kinglet lives in a palace with courtiers, ministers, a bishop, generals and a small army of only sixty men in all. The king lives by collecting taxes from the people, on tobacco, wine and spirits and a poll tax. Besides, the king also received a large sum of money from a gaming housekeeper.

No, I do not agree with the statement, “The King of Monaco is a man without a decisive stand” because there is enough evidence to prove that he had to act according to the needs of the situation. 

The King of Monaco kept changing his mind in dealing with the criminal because, every time he took a decision, he faced a problem to execute it. First, the king accepted the judge’s verdict and ordered the execution of the criminal, but he cancelled it and changed the sentence to ‘imprisonment for life’ because there was neither a guillotine machine nor an executioner in his country. Moreover, if he had decided to borrow one from the King of Italy, he would have been forced to levy 2 francs per person as additional tax which he did not like. Secondly, after keeping the criminal in prison for one year, he realized that he had to spend 600 francs on the maintenance of the criminal until his death, which would have proved to be again a financial burden to his people.

Therefore, as advised by his council of ministers, he dismissed the guard hoping that the prisoner would run away. But the prisoner refused to run away because he had nowhere to go and he had got out of the habit of working. Once again the king faced a new problem. Then, as suggested by his council of ministers, the king ordered payment of 600 francs a year as pension and got rid of the criminal.

In Monaco, a series of meetings were held to figure out the most prudent or the least expensive way of executing the criminal. As there was no guillotine or an executioner in Monaco, the council of ministers discussed the issue and decided to request the French government to lend them a machine and an expert to execute the criminal. The next meeting was held between the king and the council of ministers to inform the king that the French government had asked 16000 francs as rental for the machine and the expert and to seek the king’s consent When the king asked them whether the job could not be done at a lesser price, the ministers held another meeting and decided to send a similar inquiry to the king of Italy.

When they learnt that the Italian government wanted 12000 francs for the job, they held another meeting to explore other ways of doing the job with less expense. Later, they consulted the Army General and requested him to find a soldier who would do the execution. When they came to know that none of the soldiers would do it, the authorities assembled a commission, a committee and a sub-committee and finally came to the conclusion that the best way would be to alter the death sentence to one of imprisonment for life.

It was unusual for a murder to be committed in Monaco because the people were peaceable and never had such a crime like ‘murder’ happened before.

The Germans stopped gaming houses in their country because the gaming houses encouraged people to gamble and try their luck. This way people lost their money, and sometimes some of them drowned or shot themselves in despair. In Monaco the money received from the gaming house served as a special source of revenue and benefitted the king.

Monaco was called a toy kingdom because it had such a tiny landmass that if all the land in the kingdom were divided, there would not be even an acre for each of its seven thousand inhabitants.

The commodities taxed in Monaco were tobacco, wine and spirit The people also paid a poll tax.

1. (a) speech, 

(b) location;

2. (a) thoughts,

(b) have an objection to; 

3. (a) description,

(b) financial record;

4. (a) take out,

(b) sketch,

(c) infer,

(d) attract

1. address – to say something directly to somebody. 

2. mind – have an objection to. 

3. account – a financial record. 

4. draw – take out.

‘Too Dear!’ tells the story of Monaco, a small kingdom in Europe. The author’s intention is to parody the efforts of the modern state to violently restrain crime. Monaco had a small population, a small army and was ruled by a kinglet. Since it was a very small kingdom, it had meagre financial resources. The people lived peacefully but somehow a murder was committed. The criminal was tried as per the existing rules of the state and was finally sentenced to death. But, there was neither a guillotine machine nor an executioner in the state.

Therefore the king and the ministers made sincere attempts to borrow them from their neighbours the French Government and the King of Italy. After weighing the pros and cons of incurring a huge expenditure the king gave up the idea of getting the criminal executed and changed it to imprisonment for life. This cost the king 600 francs. When the king reflected over the cost, it struck him that the cost would become a big burden if the criminal lived another fifty years.

Again, the king and his ministers met discussed the issue and dismissed the guard believing that the criminal would run away on his own. But the criminal refused to go. Finally, the criminal was offered a small pension and paid one-third of his annuity as advance. He left the prison and emigrated to another country.

Thus, there is a streak of humour in the story throughout The author’s intention is to prod the reader with the following serious questions:

• Why should ‘violence’ be punished with violence only?
• What is the purpose of trying the criminal in a court of law and decreeing punishment?
• Why are crimes committed and how can they be prevented?
• What is the role of the government in crime prevention?
• What guarantee is there that the ‘truth’ is revealed when the criminal is tried in a court of law?  How can the miscarriage of justice be prevented?
• How can the court ensure that the convicted criminal is given punishment commensurate with the crime?
• What is the role of the government in ensuring that the family of the criminal is not put to hardship after the execution of a criminal?
• How much time should a country, like Monaco, whose resources are limited, spend on trial and punishment of criminals?

The keeper of the gaming house pays a large sum to the prince, out of his profits from the gaming house.

In ‘Too Dear!’, a tiny little kingdom called Monaco monopolised the gaming business.

The percentage of profit given by the gaming house keeper to the kinglet was the source of the king’s special revenue. The king, his ministers, courtiers, his servants, a bishop, his generals and liis army were its beneficiaries.

The King of Monaco levied taxes on tobacco, wine and spirit. He also levied a poll tax. This was the source of his income. But, with the revenue collected this way, the king found it difficult to feed his courtiers, his officials and to meet his own expenses. Nobody could live a king’s life with the meagre income as the Prince of Monaco got from his subjects. Therefore, to drive home the truth of this statement he quotes the proverb, ‘You can’t earn stone palaces by honest labour’. It only means that if one wants to live beyond his means, honest labour alone cannot fetch him enough money for his luxuries.

It implies that one has to take recourse to earn extra money by some dishonest or unethical means. The King of Monaco also had a source of additional or alternative revenue. He used to receive a large sum of money regularly from a gaming housekeeper, who paid it out of his profits earned from his gaming house.

The king knew that earning one’s living by running a gaming house where people risked their money at the roulette table was a dirty business. Yet, he had allowed it to run because he needed more money. Also, he knew that collecting ‘tax’ on tobacco and ‘drink’ was also unethical but, anyhow he had been doing it for a long time and so he did not mind collecting additional revenue by this dirty business as well.

(b) carrying out the death sentence was expensive.

After his release from prison, the criminal emigrated to another country and settled just across the frontier. With the money he had received as an annuity in advance, he bought a bit of land, started market-gardening and lived comfortably.

(a) gaming house.

The prisoner was reluctant to go out of the prison because his character had been ruined by the death sentence given to him and he had nowhere to go. Secondly, by being imprisoned and given food in his cell every day, he had given up working to earn his living. So he had become lazy. Therefore he felt helpless and so refused to go.

The Prince’s kitchen/ the palace kitchen.

The king spent 600 francs on the criminal annually.

The criminal agreed to go away on condition that he be paid 600 francs as pension for a year regularly until his death. His demand was fulfilled because the prisoner refused to run away from the prison. If he had remained there the king would have been forced to keep a guard over him to watch and also feed him until his death. The criminal left the prison and the king’s dominions as well, as soon as he received one-third of his annuity in advance. He emigrated to another country just across the frontier and settled there comfortably

After emigrating, the criminal settled in a place just across the frontiers, which could be reached by rail in only a quarter of an hour.

The criminal who committed a murder in Monaco is referred to as ‘a rascal’ by the king in ‘Too Dear!’.

In ‘Too Dear!’, the French government is Republican and has no respect for the King.

The items on which tax is levied are tobacco, wine and spirits. The people of Monaco also pay poll-tax.

Near the borders of France and Italy.

There are only sixty men in the army of Monaco.

Each inhabitant would get less than an acre.

About seven thousand.