c costume, blew
horns and threw confetti and fresh flowers, still dewy from the mountain
slopes. The Scenic Railway was crowded with merry-makers, and long lines
of people stood waiting their turn at the ticket-booth, where a surly
old veteran, pinched with sleepless nights, sold them tickets and
ignored their badinage. Family parties, carrying baskets and wheeling
babies in perambulators, took possession of the Park and littered it
with paper bags. And among them, committing horrible crimes, dispatching
whole families with a wooden gun from behind near-by trees and taking
innumerable prisoners, went a small pirate in a black mask and a sash
of scarlet ribbon, from which hung various deadly weapons, including a
bread-knife, a meat-cleaver, and a hatchet.

Attempts to make Tucker wear a mask having proved abortive, he was
attired in a pirate flag of black, worn as a blanket, and having on it,
in white muslin, what purported to be a skull and cross-bones but which
looked like the word "ox" with the "O" superimposed over the "X."

Prince Ferdinand William Otto stood at his window and looked out.
Something of resentment showed itself in the lines of his figure. There
was, indeed, rebellion in his heart. This was a real day, a day of
days, and no one seemed to care that he was missing it. Miss Braithwaite
looked drawn about the eyes, and considered carnivals rather common,
and certainly silly. And Nikky looked drawn about the mouth, and did not
care to play.

Rebellion was dawning in the soul of the Crown Prince, not the impassive
revolt of the "Flying Dutchman" and things which only pretended to be,
like the imitation ship and the women who were not really spinning. The
same rebellion, indeed, which had set old Adelbert against the King
and turned him traitor, a rebellion against needless disappointment, a
protest for happiness.

Old Adelbert, forbidden to march in his new uniform, the Crown Prince,
forbidden his liberty and shut in a gloomy palace, were blood-brothers
in revolt.

Not that Prince Ferdinand William Otto knew he was in revolt. At first
it consisted only of a consideration of his promise to the Chancellor.
But while there had been an understanding, there had been no actual
promise, had there?

Late in the morning Nikky took him to the roof. "We can't go out, old
man," Nikky said to him, rather startled to discover the unhappiness in
the boy's face, "but I've found a place where we can see more than we