rred to talk with the former Chancellor of
Saxe-Kesselberg in the middle of an open field. The time was
afternoon, the season September, and the west was vaingloriously
justifying the younger man's analogy of a gigantic Spanish omelette.
Meanwhile, the younger man declaimed in a high-pitched pleasant voice,
wherein there was, as always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter.

"I repeat to you," the tutor observed, "that no consideration will ever
make a grand-duke of me excepting over my dead body. Why don't you
recommend some not quite obsolete vocation, such as making papyrus, or
writing an interesting novel, or teaching people how to dance a
saraband? For after all, what is a monarch nowadays--oh, even a
monarch of the first class?" he argued, with what came near being a
squeak of indignation. "The poor man is a rather pitiable and
perfectly useless relic of barbarism, now that 1789 has opened our
eyes; and his main business in life is to ride in open carriages and
bow to an applauding public who are applauding at so much per head. He
must expect to be aspersed with calumny, and once in a while with
bullets. He may at the utmost aspire to introduce an innovation in
evening dress,--the Prince Regent, for instance, has invented a really
very creditable shoe-buckle. Tradition obligates him to devote his
unofficial hours to sheer depravity----"

Paul Vanderhoffen paused to meditate.

"Why, there you are! another obstacle! I have in an inquiring spirit
and without prejudice sampled all the Seven Deadly Sins, and the common
increment was an inability to enjoy my breakfast. A grand-duke I take
it, if he have any sense of the responsibilities of his position, will
piously remember the adage about the voice of the people and hasten to
be steeped in vice--and thus conform to every popular notion concerning
a grand-duke. Why, common intelligence demands that a grand-duke
should brazenly misbehave himself upon the more conspicuous high-places
of Chemosh! and personally, I have no talents such as would qualify me
for a life of cynical and brutal immorality. I lack the necessary
aptitude, I would not ever afford any spicy gossip concerning the Duke
of Saxe-Kesselberg, and the editors of the society papers would
unanimously conspire to dethrone me----"

Thus he argued, with his high-pitched pleasant voice, wherein there
was, as always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter. And here the
other interrupted.

"There is n