line of it?" he
demanded of the Chancellor.

"I shall be honored, Highness." not often did the Chancellor say
"Highness." Generally he said "Otto" or "my child."

Prince Ferdinand William Otto read aloud, with dancing eyes, his last
line: "'I should like to own a dog.' I thought," he said wistfully,
"that I might ask my grandfather for one."

"I see no reason why you should not have a dog," the Chancellor
observed.

"Not one to be kept at the stables," Otto explained. "One to stay with
me all the time. One to sleep on the foot of the bed."

But here the Chancellor threw up his hands. Instantly he visualized
all the objections to dogs, from fleas to rabies. And he put the
difficulties into words. No mean speaker was the Chancellor when
so minded. He was a master of style, of arrangement, of logic and
reasoning. He spoke at length, even, at the end, rising and pacing a few
steps up and down the room. But when he had concluded, when the dog,
so to speak, had fled yelping to the country of dead hopes, Prince
Ferdinand William Otto merely gulped, and said:

"Well, I wish I could have a dog!"

The Chancellor changed his tactics by changing the subject. "I was
wondering this morning, as I crossed the park, if you would enjoy an
excursion soon. Could it be managed, Miss Braithwaite?"

"I dare say," said Miss Braithwaite dryly. "Although I must say, if
there is no improvement in punctuation and capital letters--"

"What sort of excursion?" asked His Royal Highness, guardedly. He did
not care for picture galleries.

"Out-of-doors, to see something interesting."

But Prince Ferdinand William Otto was cautious with the caution of one
who, by hoping little, may be agreeably disappointed. "A corner-stone, I
suppose," he said.

"Not a corner-stone," said the Chancellor, with eyes that began to
twinkle under ferocious brows. "No, Otto. A real excursion, up the
river."

"To the fort? I do want to see the new fort."

As a matter of truth, the Chancellor had not thought of the fort. But
like many another before him, he accepted the suggestion and made it his
own. "To the fort, of course," said he.

"And take luncheon along, and eat it there, and have Hedwig and Nikky?
And see the guns?"

But this was going too fast. Nikky, of course, would go, and if the
Princess cared to, she too. But luncheon! It was necessary to remind the
Crown Prince that the officers at the fort would expect to have him
join their mess. There w