ck of the
morning on which the Prince is to review the troops from the fortress.
The question under discussion relates to the loan of 5,000,000 gavvos,
before mentioned. At the head of the long table, perched upon an
augmentary pile of law books surmounted by a little red cushion, sits
the Prince, almost lost in the hugh old walnut chair of his forefathers.
Down the table sit the ten ministers of the departments of state, all of
them loving the handsome little fellow on the necessary pile of
statutes, but all of them more or less indifferent to his significant
yawns and perplexed frowns.

The Prince was a sturdy, curly-haired lad, with big brown eyes and a
lamentably noticeable scratch on his nose--acquired in less stately but
more profitable pursuits. (It seems that he had peeled his nose while
sliding to second base in a certain American game that he was teaching
the juvenile aristocracy how to play.) His wavy hair was brown and
rebellious. No end of royal nursing could keep it looking sleek and
proper. He had the merit of being a very bad little boy at times; that
is why he was loved by every one. Although it was considered next to
high treason to strike a prince of the royal blood, I could, if I had
the space, recount the details of numerous fisticuffs behind the state
stables in which, sad to relate, the Prince just as often as not came
off with a battered dignity and a chastened opinion of certain small fry
who could not have been more than dukes or barons at best. But he took
his defeats manfully: he did not whimper _lese majeste_. John Tullis,
his "Uncle Jack," had proclaimed his scorn for a boy who could not "take
his medicine." And so Prince Robin took it gracefully because he was
prince.

To-day he was--for him--rather oppressively dignified and imperial. He
may have blinked his weary eyes a time or two, but in the main he was
very attentive, very circumspect and very much puzzled. Custom required
that the ruling prince or princess should preside over the meetings of
the cabinet. It is needless to observe that the present ruler's duty
ended when he repeated (after Count Halfont): "My lords, we are now in
session." The school-room, he confessed, was a "picnic" compared to the
"Room of Wrangles": a fellow got a recess once in a while there, but
here--well, the only recess he got was when he fell asleep. To-day he
was determined to maintain a very dignified mien. It appears that at the
last meeting he had crea