In Caverns Below by Stanton A. Coblentz — Read

In order to press on to more crucial events, I shall not linger over my first few months as Dictator. Clad in the magnificence of my new office, I dwelt in a spacious suite of rooms with palatial adornments and scores of attendants; I enjoyed the applause and veneration of millions who bowed before me as before a god; my comings and goings were heralded with blasts of trumpets and the rattle of military trappings; I held court daily on the throne of Thuno Flâtum, decided matters of public policy and law and issued orders which, theoretically, could be disobeyed only under pain of death.

Nevertheless, not all flowed smoothly. To begin with, there was the secret opposition which I had to face. Both the Second Class and the Third had accepted me readily enough as sovereign in the absence of Thuno Flâtum and never so much as inquired why Thuno remained so long on his vacation; but the First Class, it appeared, had not been trained to an equal degree of thoughtlessness, and hence could not accept me so unquestioningly. Many were the murmurs of complaint that came to my ears; it was muttered that "Luma the Illustrious" was not really "First of the First Class," as he claimed to be; that, indeed, he was not First Class at all, but came of plebian birth. In proof of this blasting accusation, it was pointed out that Luma was too healthy to be First Class; that his limbs were not shrivelled enough and he could actually walk long distances, like any Third Class nobody; that his natural eyesight was good, his ears useful without hearing tubes, and his lungs capable of functioning without artificial aid; while he was neither bald nor toothless, as every "green-blooded" aristocrat should be. In other words, he was a mere undistinguished interloper, without noble lineage or antecedents.