g
painfully from step to step. He heard the concierge come in below, his
heavy footsteps reechoed through the building. Inside the door he called
furiously to his niece. Old Adelbert heard him strike a match to light
the gas.

On the staircase he met the Fraulein hurrying down. Her face was
strained and her eyes glittering. She hesitated, as though she would
speak, then she went on past him. He could hear her running. It
reminded the old man of that day in the Opera, when a child ran down
the staircase, and, as is the way of the old, he repeated himself:
"One would think new legs grew in place of old ones, like the claws of
sea-creatures," he said fretfully. And went on up the staircase.

In his room he sat down on a straight chair inside the door, and stared
ahead. Then, slowly and mechanically, he took off his new uniform
and donned the old one. He would have put on civilian clothes, had he
possessed any. For by the deeds of that day he had forfeited the right
to the King's garb.

It was there that Black Humbert, hurrying up, found him. The concierge
was livid, his massive frame shook with excitement.

"Quick!" he said, and swore a great oath. "To the shop of the cobbler
Heinz, and tell him this word. Here in the building is the boy."

"What boy?"

The concierge closed a great hand on the veteran's shoulder. "Who but
the Crown Prince himself!" he said.

"But I thought--how can he be here?"

"Here is he, in our very hands. It is no time to ask questions."

"If he is here--"

"He is with the Americans," hissed the concierge, the veins on his
forehead swollen with excitement. "Now, go, and quickly. I shall watch.
Say that when I have secured the lad, I shall take him there. Let all
be ready. An hour ago," he said, raising his great fists on high, "and
everything lost. Now hurry, old wooden leg. It is a great night."

"But--I cannot. Already I have done too much. I am damned. I have lost
my soul. I who am soon to die."

"YOU WILL GO."

And, at last, he went, hobbling down the staircase recklessly, because
the looming figure at the stair head was listening. He reached the
street. There, only a block away, was the cobbler's shop, lighted, but
with the dirty curtains drawn across the window.

Old Adelbert gazed at it. Then he commended his soul to God, and turned
toward the Palace.

He passed the Opera. On Carnival night it should have been open and
in gala array, with lines of carriages and machines befo