Prince humbly. But he made careful note of
one thing. He was not to talk of this plan to Hedwig, but there was
no other restriction. He could, for instance, take it up with
the Chancellor, or even with the King to-morrow, if he was in an
approachable humor.

Hedwig was not at the riding-school. This relieved Prince Ferdinand
William Otto, whose views as to Nikky were entirely selfish, but Nikky
himself had unaccountably lost his high spirits of the morning. He
played, of course, as he always did. And even taught the Crown Prince
how to hang over the edge of his saddle, while his horse was cantering,
so that bullets would not strike him.

They rode and frolicked, yelled a bit, got two ponies and whacked a polo
ball over the tan-bark, until the Crown Prince was sweating royally and
was gloriously flushed.

"I don't know when I have been so happy," he said, dragging out his
handkerchief and mopping his face. "It's a great deal pleasanter without
Hedwig, isn't it?"

While they played, overhead the great hearse was ready at last. Its
woodwork shone. Its gold crosses gleamed. No fleck of dust disturbed its
austere magnificence.

The man and the boy who had been working on it stood back and surveyed
it.

"All ready," said the man, leaning on the handle of his long brush. "Now
it may happen any time."

"It is very handsome. But I am glad I am not the old King." The boy
picked up pails and brushes. "Nothing to look forward to but--that."

"But much to look back on," the man observed grimly, "and little that is
good."

The boy glanced through a window, below which the riding-ring stretched
its brown surface, scarred by nervous hoofs. "I would change places with
the Crown Prince," he said enviously. "Listen to him! Always laughing.
Never to labor, nor worry, nor think of the next day's food--"

"Young fool!" The man came to his shoulder and glanced down also. "Would
like to be a princeling, then! No worry. No trouble. Always play, play!"
He gripped the boy's shoulder. "Look, lad, at the windows about. That
is what it is to be a prince. Wherever you look, what do you see?
Stablemen? Grooms? Bah, secret agents, watching that no assassin, such
perhaps as you and I, lurk about."

The boy opened wide, incredulous eyes. "But who would attack a child?"
he asked.

"There be those, nevertheless," said the man mockingly. "Even a child
may stand in the way of great changes."

He stopped and stared, wiping the glass clear th