hla. We live in Hall, in
the Innthal; and Hirschvogel has been ours so long--so long!"

His lips quivered with a broken sob.

"And have you truly travelled inside this stove all the way from
Tyrol?"

"Yes," said August; "no one thought to look inside till you did."

The king laughed; then another view of the matter occurred to him.

"Who bought the stove of your father?" he inquired.

"Traders of Munich," said August, who did not know that he ought not
to have spoken to the king as to a simple citizen, and whose little
brain was whirling and spinning dizzily round its one central idea.

"What sum did they pay your father, do you know?" asked the sovereign.

"Two hundred florins," said August, with a great sigh of shame. "It
was so much money, and he is so poor, and there are so many of us."

The king turned to his gentlemen-in-waiting. "Did these dealers of
Munich come with the stove?"

He was answered in the affirmative. He desired them to be sought for
and brought before him. As one of his chamberlains hastened on the
errand, the monarch looked at August with compassion.

"You are very pale, little fellow: when did you eat last?"

"I had some bread and sausage with me; yesterday afternoon I finished
it."

"You would like to eat now?"

"If I might have a little water I would be glad; my throat is very
dry."

The king had water and wine brought for him, and cake also; but
August, though he drank eagerly, could not swallow anything. His mind
was in too great a tumult.

"May I stay with Hirschvogel?--may I stay?" he said with feverish
agitation.

"Wait a little," said the king, and asked, abruptly, "What do you wish
to be when you are a man?"

"A painter. I wish to be what Hirschvogel was--I mean the master that
made _my_ Hirschvogel."

"I understand," said the king.

Then the two dealers were brought into their sovereign's presence.
They were so terribly alarmed, not being either so innocent or so
ignorant as August was that they were trembling as though they were
being led to the slaughter, and they were so utterly astonished too at
a child having come all the way from Tyrol in the stove, as a
gentleman of the court had just told them this child had done, that
they could not tell what to say or where to look, and presented a very
foolish aspect indeed.

"Did you buy this Nuernberg stove of this little boy's father for two
hundred florins?" the king asked them; and his voice was no longer
sof