ore about the business than I did.

By this you will observe that diplomacy has degenerated into the gentle
art of exciting jaded palates and of scribbling one's name across
passports; I know of no better definition. I forget what the largess
of my office was.

Presently there were terrible doings. The old reigning grand duke
desired peace of mind; and moving determinedly toward this end, he
declared in public that his niece, the young and tender Princess
Hildegarde, should wed the Prince of Doppelkinn, whose vineyards gave
him a fine income. This was finality; the avuncular guardian had
waited long enough for his wilful ward to make up her mind as to the
selection of a suitable husband; now _he_ determined to take a hand in
the matter. And you shall see how well he managed it.

It is scarcely necessary for me to state that her Highness had her own
ideas of what a husband should be like, gathered, no doubt, from
execrable translations from "Ouida" and the gentle Miss Braddon. A
girl of twenty usually has a formidable regard for romance, and the
princess was fully up to the manner of her kind. If she could not
marry romantically, she refused to marry at all.

I can readily appreciate her uncle's perturbation. I do not know how
many princelings she thrust into utter darkness. She would _never_
marry a man who wore glasses; this one was too tall, that one too
short; and when one happened along who was without visible earmarks or
signs of being shop-worn her refusal was based upon just--"Because!"--a
weapon as invincible as the fabled spear of Parsifal. She had spurned
the addresses of Prince Mischler, laughed at those of the Count of
------ - ------ (the short dash indicates the presence of a hyphen) and
General Muerrisch, of the emperor's body-guard, who was, I'm sure, good
enough--in his own opinion--for any woman. Every train brought to the
capital some suitor with a consonated, hyphenated name and a pedigree
as long as a bore's idea of a funny story. But the princess did not
care for pedigrees that were squint-eyed or bow-legged. One and all of
them she cast aside as unworthy her consideration. Then, like the
ancient worm, the duke turned. She should marry Doppelkinn, who,
having no wife to do the honors in his castle, was wholly agreeable.

The Prince of Doppelkinn reigned over the neighboring principality. If
you stood in the middle of it and were a baseball player, you could
throw a stone across