So he sat still beside the chimney, well shielded by the evergreens in
tubs, until the voices and the footsteps were gone. Then he took all his
courage in his hands, and slid. Well for him that the ancient builders
of the Palace had been reckless with lead, that the gutter was both
wide and deep. Well for Nikky, too, waiting in the boudoir below and
hard-driven between love and anxiety.

The Crown Prince, unaccustomed to tiles, turned over halfway down,
and rolled. He brought up with a jerk in the gutter, quite safe, but
extremely frightened. And the horrid memory of the Crystal Palace child
filled his mind, to the exclusion of everything else. He sat there for
quite a few minutes. There was no ball in sight, and the roof looked
even steeper from this point.

Being completely self-engrossed, therefore, he did not see that the roof
had another visitor. Had two visitors, as a matter of fact. One of them
wore a blanket with a white "O" over a white "X" on it, and the other
wore a mask, and considerable kitchen cutlery fastened to his belt. They
had come out of a small door in the turret and were very much at ease.
They leaned over the parapet and admired the view. They strutted about
the flat roof, and sang, at least one of them sang a very strange
refrain, which was something about

"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest;
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum."

And then they climbed on one of the garden chairs and looked over the
expanse of the roof, which was when they saw Prince Ferdinand William
Otto, and gazed at him.

"Gee whiz!" said the larger pirate, through his mask. "What are you
doing there?"

The Crown Prince started, and stared. "I am sitting here," explained the
Crown Prince, trying to look as though he usually sat in lead gutters.
"I am looking for a ball."

"You're looking for a fall, I guess," observed the pirate. "You don't
remember me, kid, do you?"

"I can't see your face, but I know your voice." His voice trembled with
excitement.

"Lemme give you a hand," said the pirate, whipping off his mask. "You
make me nervous, sitting there. You've got a nerve, you have."

The Crown Prince looked gratified. "I don't need any assistance, thank
you," he said. "Perhaps, now I'm here, I'd better look for the ball."

"I wouldn't bother about the old ball," said the pirate, rather
nervously for an old sea-dog. "You better get back to a safe place. Say,
what made you pretend that our Railway ma