t all! In fact, we had
better clap the lid on this Demon, ill-informed as to all these points;
and, on such suggestion, give the real account of them, distilled from
Preuss, and the abundant authentic sources.

Preuss says (if readers could but remember him): "An Almanac lies on
the King's Table, marking for each day what specific duties the day will
bring. From five to six hours of sleep: in summer he rises about three,
seldom after four; in winter perhaps an hour later. In his older time,
seven hours' sleep came to be the stipulated quantity; and he would
sleep occasionally eight hours or even nine, in certain medical
predicaments. Not so in his younger years: four A.M. and five, the set
hours then. Summer and winter, fire is lighted for him a quarter of an
hour before. King rises; gets into his clothes: 'stockings, breeches,
boots, he did sitting on the bed' (for one loves to be particular); the
rest in front of the fire, in standing posture. Washing followed; more
compendious than his Father's used to be.

"Letters specifically to his address, a courier (leaving Berlin, 9
P.M.) had brought him in the dead of night: these, on the instant of the
King's calling 'Here!' a valet in the ante chamber brought in to him, to
be read while his hair was being done. His uniform the King did not at
once put on; but got into a CASAQUIN [loose article of the dressing-gown
kind, only shorter than ours] of rich stuff, sometimes of velvet with
precious silver embroideries. These Casaquins were commonly sky-blue
(which color he liked), presents from his Sisters and Nieces. Letters
being glanced over, and hair-club done, the Life-guard General-Adjutant
hands in the Potsdam Report (all strangers that have entered Potsdam or
left it, the principal item): this, with a Berlin Report, which had come
with the Letters; and what of Army-Reports had arrived (Adjutant-General
delivering these),--were now glanced over. And so, by five o'clock in
the summer morning, by six in the winter, one sees, in the gross, what
one's day's-work is to be; the miscellaneous STONES of it are now mostly
here, only mortar and walling of them to be thought of. General-Adjutant
and his affairs are first settled: on each thing a word or two, which
the General-Adjutant (always a highly confidential Officer, a Hacke, a
Winterfeld, or the like) pointedly takes down.

"General-Adjutant gone, the King, in sky-blue casaquin [often in very
faded condition] steps into his w