ance before him; and he,--he gave her John
the Baptist's head for her pains!'" This HEROD, Busching says, was
understood to mean, and meant, the Crown-Prince; HERODIAS, the merry
corps of Officers who made sport for him; JOHN THE BAPTIST'S HEAD was no
other than the Chaplain not invited to dinner! "To punish him for such
a sally, the Crown-Prince with the young Officers of his Regiment went,
one night, to the Chaplain's house," somewhere hard by, with cow's-grass
adjoining to it, as we see: and "first, they knocked in the windows of
his sleeping-room upon him [HINGE-windows, glass not entirely broken,
we may hope]; next there were crackers [SCHWARMER, "enthusiasts," so
to speak!] thrown in upon him; and thereby the Chaplain, and his poor
Wife," more or less in an interesting condition, poor woman, "were
driven out into the court-yard, and at last into the dung-heap
there;"--and so left, with their Head on a Charger to that terrible
extent!

That is Busching's version of the story; no doubt substantially correct;
of which there are traces in other quarters,--for it went farther than
Ruppin; and the Crown-Prince had like to have got into trouble from
it. "Here is piety!" said Rumor, carrying it to Tobacco-Parliament. The
Crown-Prince plaintively assures Grumkow that it was the Officers, and
that they got punished for it. A likely story, the Prince's!

"When King Friedrich, in his old days, recounted this after dinner, in
his merry tone, he was well pleased that the guests, and even the pages
and valets behind his back, laughed aloud at it." Not a pious old King,
Doctor, still less an orthodox one! The Doctor continues: "In a like
style, at Nauen, where part of his regiment lay, he had--by means of
Herr von der Groben, his First-Lieutenant," much a comrade of his, as
we otherwise perceive--"the Diaconus of Nauen and his Wife hunted out of
bed, and thrown into terror of their lives, one night:"--offence of the
Diaconus not specified. "Nay he himself once pitched his gold-headed
stick through Salpius the Church Inspector's window,"--offence again not
specified, or perhaps merely for a little artillery practice?--"and the
throw was so dexterous that it merely made a round hole in the glass:
stick was lying on the floor; and the Prince," on some excuse or other,
"sent for it next morning." "Margraf Heinrich of Schwedt," continues the
Doctor, very trustworthy on points of fact, "was a diligent helper in
such operations. Kaiser