your pardon?"

"Would your family object?"

"There is only one person who would mind," reflected the Crown Prince,
aloud, "and she will be angry anyhow. I--do you think your mother will
be willing?"

"Willing? Sure she will! My governess--but I'll fix her. She's a German,
and they're always cranky. Anyhow, it's my birthday. I'm always allowed
a guest on birthdays."

So home together, gayly chatting, went the two children, along the
cobble-paved streets of the ancient town, past old churches that had
been sacked and pillaged by the very ancestors of one of them, taking
short cuts through narrow passages that twisted and wormed their way
between, and sometimes beneath, century-old stone houses; across
the flower-market, where faint odors of dying violets and crushed
lilies-of-the-valley still clung to the bare wooden booths; and so,
finally, to the door of a tall building where, from the concierge's room
beside the entrance, came a reek of stewing garlic.

Neither of the children had noticed the unwonted silence of the streets,
which had, almost suddenly, succeeded the noise of the Carnival. What
few passers-by they had seen had been hurrying in the direction of the
Palace. Twice they had passed soldiers, with lanterns, and once one had
stopped and flashed a light on them.

"Well, old sport!" said Bobby in English, "anything you can do for me?"

The soldier had passed on, muttering at the insolence of American
children. The two youngsters laughed consumedly at the witticism. They
were very happy, the lonely little American boy and the lonely little
Prince--happy from sheer gregariousness, from the satisfaction of that
strongest of human inclinations, next to love--the social instinct.

The concierge was out. His niece admitted them, and went back to
her interrupted cooking. The children hurried up the winding stone
staircase, with its iron rail and its gas lantern, to the second floor.

In the sitting-room, the sour-faced governess was darning a hole in a
small stocking. She was as close as possible to the green-tile stove,
and she was looking very unpleasant; for the egg-shaped darner only
slipped through the hole, which was a large one. With an irritable
gesture she took off her slipper, and, putting one coarse-stockinged
foot on the fender, proceeded to darn by putting the slipper into the
stocking and working over it.

Things looked unpropitious. The Crown Prince ducked behind Bobby.

The Fraulein looked