ured a concession in a far corner
of the park. Hedwig's lieutenant had described it to him--how one was
taken in a small car to a dizzy height, and then turned loose on a
track which dropped giddily and rose again, which hurled one through
sheet-iron tunnels of incredible blackness, thrust one out over a gorge,
whirled one in mad curves around corners of precipitous heights, and
finally landed one, panting, breathless, shocked, and reeling; but
safe, at the very platform where one had purchased one's ticket three
eternities, which were only minutes, before.

Prince Ferdinand William Otto had put this proposition, like the fig
woman, to Miss Braithwaite. Miss Braithwaite replied with the sad
history of an English child who had clutched at his cap during a crucial
moment on a similar track at the Crystal Palace in London.

"When they picked him up," she finished, "every bone in his body was
broken."

"Every bone?"

"Every bone," said Miss Braithwaite solemnly.

"The little ones in his ears, and all?"

"Every one," said Miss Braithwaite, refusing to weaken.

The Crown Prince had pondered. "He must have felt like jelly," he
remarked, and Miss Braithwaite had dropped the subject.

So now, with freedom and his week's allowance, except the outlay for the
fig woman, in his pocket, Prince Ferdinand William Otto started for the
Land of Desire. The allee was almost deserted. It was the sacred hour
of coffee. The terraces were empty, but from the coffee-houses along the
drive there came a cheerful rattle of cups, a hum of conversation.

As the early spring twilight fell, the gas-lamps along the allee, always
burning, made a twin row of pale stars ahead. At the end, even as the
wanderer gazed, he saw myriads of tiny red, white, and blue lights,
rising high in the air, outlining the crags and peaks of the sheet-iron
mountain which was his destination. The Land of Desire was very near!

There came to his ears, too, the occasional rumble that told of some
palpitating soul being at that moment hurled and twisted and joyously
thrilled, as per the lieutenant's description.

Now it is a strange thing, but true, that one does not reach the Land
of Desire alone; because the half of pleasure is the sharing of it with
someone else, and the Land of Desire, alone, is not the Land of Desire
at all. Quite suddenly, Prince Ferdinand William Otto discovered that he
was lonely. He sat down on the curb under the gas-lamp and ate the fig
w