ine act and mixin' with a lot of chestnut roasters?
But old whiskers had the evidence down pat, though. As he told it, she
was a sure enough princess, so far as the tag went, only the family had
been in the nobility business so long that the pedigree had lasted out
the plunks.

It seemed that away back, before the Chicago fire or the Sayers-Heenan
go, her great-grandpop had princed it in regulation shape. Then there'd
come a grand mix-up, a war or something, and a lot of princes had either
lost their jobs or got on the blacklist. Her great-grandpop had been one
of the kind that didn't know when he was licked. They euchred him out
of his castle and building lots, but he gathered up what was left of his
gang and slid for the tall timber, where he went on princing the best he
knew how. As he couldn't disgrace himself by workin', and hadn't lost
the hankerin' for reg'lar meals, he got into the habit of taking up
contributions from whoever came along, calling it a road tax. And that's
how the Padova family fell into playing the hold-up game.

But the old man Padova, the Princess' father, never forgot that if he'd
had his rights he would have been boss of his ward, and he always acted
accordin'. So when he picked the Consul up on the road one night with a
broken leg he gave him the best in the house, patched him up like an
ambulance surgeon, and kept him board free until he could walk back to
town. And so, when Miss Padova takes it into her head to elope to
America with a tin trunk, Papa Padova hikes himself down to the nearest
telegraph office and cables over a general alarm to his old friend,
who's been made consul.

"I've been having Mulberry Bend raked with a fine toothed comb," says
he, "but when I saw her highness stand up here in the box I knew her at
a glance, although it's been ten years since I saw her last."

Then he asked her if he hadn't called the trick, and she said he had.

"Now," says he, "perhaps you'll tell us why you came to America?"

"Sure," says she, or something that meant the same, "I've come over
after me best feller. I've made up my mind that I'll marry him," and she
slips an arm around the Boss's neck just as cool as though they'd been
on a moonlight excursion.

Mr. Consul's face gets as red as a fireman's shirt, the Van Urbans catch
their breath with both fists, and I begins to see what a lovely mess I'd
been helping the Boss to get himself into. He never turned a hair
though.

"The honor