s wife. He was a weakling.

The weakling smiled across the table at the wife with the soft eyes.
"How about it, mother?" he asked. "Shall the firm of 'Bobby and I' offer
him a job?"

"I would like it very much," said the weakling's wife, dropping her eyes
to hide the pride in them.

"Suppose," said the weakling, "that you run up after dinner, Bob, and
bring him down. Now sit still, young man, and finish. There's no such
hurry as that."

And in this fashion did old Adelbert become ticket-chopper of the
American Scenic Railway.

And in this fashion, too, commenced that odd friendship between him and
the American lad that was to have so vital an effect on the very life
itself of the Crown Prince Ferdinand William Otto of Livonia.

Late that evening, old Adelbert's problem having been solved, Pepy the
maid and Bobby had a long talk. It concerned itself mainly with kings.
Pepy sat in a low chair by the tiled stove in the kitchen, and knitted a
stocking with a very large foot.

"What I want to know is this," said Bobby, swinging his legs on the
table: "What are the Terrorists?"

Pepy dropping her knitting, and stared with open mouth. "What know you
of such things?" she demanded.

"Well, Terrorists killed the Crown Prince's father, and--"

Quite suddenly Pepy leaped from her chair, and covered Bobby's mouth
with her hand. "Hush!" she said, and stared about her with frightened
eyes. The door into the dining-room was open, and the governess sat
there with a book. Then, in a whisper: "They are everywhere. No one
knows who they are, nor where they meet." The superstition of her
mountains crept into her voice. "It is said that they have the
assistance of the evil one, and that the reason the police cannot find
them is because they take the form of cats. I myself," she went on
impressively, "crossing the Place one night late, after spending the
evening with a friend, saw a line of cats moving in the shadows. One
of them stopped and looked at me." Pepy crossed herself. "It had a face
like the Fraulein in there."

Bobby stared with interest through the doorway. The governess did look
like a cat. She had staring eyes, and a short, wide face. "Maybe's she's
one of them," he reflected aloud.

"Oh, for God's sake, hush!" cried Pepy, and fell to knitting rapidly.
Nor could Bobby elicit anything further from her. But that night, in
his sleep, he saw a Crown Prince, dressed in velvet and ermine, being
surrounded and attacked