he Prince's bridle ere he could dismount.

"You can ride, Captain Hugo Gottfried!" he said. "I think I will make you
my orderly officer."

And so he went within, without a word more of praise or welcome.

There came past just at that moment an ancient councillor clad in a long
robe of black velvet, with broad facings and rosettes of scarlet. He was
carrying a roll of papers in his hand.

"What said the Prince to yon, young sir, if I may ask without offence?"
said he, looking at me with a curiously sly, upward glance out of the
corner of his eye, as if he suspected me of a fixed intention to tell him
a lie in any case.

"If it be any satisfaction to you to know," answered I, rather piqued at
his tone, "the Prince informed me that I could ride, and that he intended
to make me his orderly officer. And he called me not 'young sir,' but
Captain Hugo Gottfried."

"How long has he known you?" said the Chief Councillor of State. For so
by his habit I knew him to be.

"Half an hour, or thereby," answered I.

"God help this kingdom!" cried the old man, tripping off, flirting his
hand hopelessly in the air--"if he had known you only ten minutes you
would have been either Prime-Minister or Commander-in-Chief of the army."

It was in this strange fashion that I entered the army of the Prince of
Plassenburg, a service which I shall ever look back upon with gratitude,
and count as having brought me all the honors and most of the pleasures
of my life.

Half an hour or so afterwards the blowing of trumpets and the thunder of
the new leathern cannon announced that the Princess and her train were
entering the palace. The Prince came down to greet them on the threshold
in a new and magnificent dress.

"The Prince's officer-in-waiting to attend upon his Highness!" cried a
herald in fine raiment of blue and yellow.

I looked about for the man who was to be my superior in my new
office--that is, if Prince Karl should prove to have spoken in earnest.

"The Prince's orderly to attend upon him!" again proclaimed the herald,
more impatiently.'

I saw every eye turn upon me, and I began to feel a gentle heat come over
me. Presently I was blushing furiously. For I was still in my
riding-clothes, and even they had not been changed after the adventure of
the Brick-dust Town. So that they were in no wise fitting to attend upon
a mighty dignitary.

The Prince of Plassenburg looked round.

"Ha!" he said; "this is not well--I had forg