e and somehow he had got money enough to keep
him awhile; and with money in his pocket he was again and at once a
power in Forstadt. There must have been strange doings in that man's
soul, worthy of record; but who would be so bold as to take up the pen?
His reappearance was remarkable enough. I asked whether he did what he
did in malice, in a rivalry that our quarrel and our common defeat at
the hands of the paunchy impresario could not wipe out, or whether he
discerned that I should join in his acid laugh, and, as I read his
speech, cry to myself, "Lo, here is truth and a man who tells it!"

For he rose, there in the Chamber, when Bederhof's sticky syrup had
ceased to flow. He spoke of my betrothal, sketching in a poet's mood,
with the art of an orator, that perfect love whereof men dream; painting
with exquisite skill the man's hot exultation and the girl's tremulous
triumph, the spontaneous leap of heart to heart, the world without
eclipsed and invisible; the brightness, the glory, and the unquestioning
confidence in their eternity. His voice rose victorious out of
falterings; his eyes gleamed with the vision that he made. Then, while
still they wondered as men shown new things in their own hearts, his
lips curved in a smile and his tones fell to a moderate volume. "Such,"
said he, "are the joys which our country shares with its King. Because
they are his they are ours; because they are his they are hers. Hers
and his are they till their lives' end; ours while our hearts are worthy
to conceive of them."

They were silent when he sat down. He had outraged etiquette; nobody had
ever said that sort of thing before on such an occasion. Bederhof
searched in vain through an exhaustive memorandum prepared in the
Chancellery. He consulted the clerks. Nobody had ever said anything in
the least like it. They were puzzled. It was all most excellent, most
loyal, calculated to impress the people in the most favourable way. But,
deuce take it, why did the man smile while he talked, and why did his
voice change from a ring of a trumpet to the rasp of a file? The Chamber
at large was rather upset by Wetter's oration.

Ah, Wetter, but you had an audience fit though small! I read it--I read
it all. I, in my study at Artenberg; I, alone. My mind leaped with
yours; my lips bent to the curve of yours. Surely you spoke to please
me, Wetter? To show that one man knew? To display plainest truth by the
medium of a giant's lies? I could in