that Strelsau was thronged. Rooms were
all let and hotels overflowing; there would be very little chance of my
obtaining a lodging, and I should certainly have to pay an exorbitant
charge for it. I made up my mind to stop at Zenda, a small town fifty
miles short of the capital, and about ten from the frontier. My train
reached there in the evening; I would spend the next day, Tuesday, in a
wander over the hills, which were said to be very fine, and in taking
a glance at the famous Castle, and go over by train to Strelsau on the
Wednesday morning, returning at night to sleep at Zenda.

Accordingly at Zenda I got out, and as the train passed where I stood on
the platform, I saw my friend Madame de Mauban in her place; clearly she
was going through to Strelsau, having, with more providence than I could
boast, secured apartments there. I smiled to think how surprised
George Featherly would have been to know that she and I had been fellow
travellers for so long.

I was very kindly received at the hotel--it was really no more than an
inn--kept by a fat old lady and her two daughters. They were good,
quiet people, and seemed very little interested in the great doings at
Strelsau. The old lady's hero was the duke, for he was now, under the
late King's will, master of the Zenda estates and of the Castle, which
rose grandly on its steep hill at the end of the valley a mile or so
from the inn. The old lady, indeed, did not hesitate to express regret
that the duke was not on the throne, instead of his brother.

"We know Duke Michael," said she. "He has always lived among us; every
Ruritanian knows Duke Michael. But the King is almost a stranger; he has
been so much abroad, not one in ten knows him even by sight."

"And now," chimed in one of the young women, "they say he has shaved off
his beard, so that no one at all knows him."

"Shaved his beard!" exclaimed her mother. "Who says so?"

"Johann, the duke's keeper. He has seen the King."

"Ah, yes. The King, sir, is now at the duke's hunting-lodge in the
forest here; from here he goes to Strelsau to be crowned on Wednesday
morning."

I was interested to hear this, and made up my mind to walk next day in
the direction of the lodge, on the chance of coming across the King. The
old lady ran on garrulously:

"Ah, and I wish he would stay at his hunting--that and wine (and one
thing more) are all he loves, they say--and suffer our duke to be
crowned on Wednesday. That I wish,