t and kind as it had been when addressing the child, but very
stern.

"Yes, your majesty," murmured the trembling traders.

"And how much did the gentleman who purchased it for me give to you?"

"Two thousand ducats, your majesty," muttered the dealers, frightened
out of their wits, and telling the truth in their fright.

The gentleman was not present: he was a trusted counselor in art
matters of the king's, and often made purchases for him.

The king smiled a little, and said nothing. The gentleman had made out
the price to him as eleven thousand ducats.

"You will give at once to this boy's father the two thousand gold
ducats that you received, less the two hundred Austrian florins that
you paid him," said the king to his humiliated and abject subjects.
"You are great rogues. Be thankful you are not more greatly punished."

He dismissed them by a sign to his courtiers, and to one of these gave
the mission of making the dealers of the Marienplatz disgorge their
ill-gotten gains.

August heard, and felt dazzled yet miserable. Two thousand gold
Bavarian ducats for his father! Why, his father would never need to go
any more to the salt-baking! And yet, whether for ducats or for
florins, Hirschvogel was sold just the same, and would the king let
him stay with it?--would he?

"Oh, do! oh, please do!" he murmured, joining his little brown
weather-stained hands, and kneeling down before the young monarch, who
himself stood absorbed in painful thought, for the deception so basely
practised for the greedy sake of gain on him by a trusted counsellor
was bitter to him.

He looked down on the child, and as he did so smiled once more.

"Rise up, my little man," he said, in a kind voice; "kneel only to
your God. Will I let you stay with your Hirschvogel? Yes, I will, you
shall stay at my court, and you shall be taught to be a painter--in
oils or on porcelain as you will--and you must grow up worthily, and
win all the laurels at our Schools of Art, and if when you are
twenty-one years old you have done well and bravely, then I will give
you your Nuernberg stove, or, if I am no more living, then those who
reign after me shall do so. And now go away with this gentleman, and
be not afraid, and you shall light a fire every morning in
Hirschvogel, but you will not need to go out and cut the wood."

Then he smiled and stretched out his hand; the courtiers tried to make
August understand that he ought to bow and touch it with