never to leave him alone. The King was a hard traveler, and seemed
positively to wish for extra hardships and fatigues, the party scarcely
stopping for food or sleep. At one place, however, a short stay was
made, and there Fritz planned to escape.

They had arrived at the town very late, and the boy with his officers
slept in a barn, as was not infrequently the case. The usual hour for
starting in the morning was three o'clock. A little after midnight Fritz
saw that his companions were sound asleep, and rose and crept out into
the open air. He had made arrangements with a servant to meet him with
horses on the village green. The boy reached the green and found the
horses, but at the same moment one of the guards, who had been awakened
by the noise Fritz made in leaving the barn, caught up with him, and
demanded of the servant who held the horses: "Sirrah! What are you doing
with those beasts?"

The man answered, "I am getting the horses ready for the start."

"We do not start till five o'clock. Take them back at once to the
stable." The officer pretended not to see Fritz, who had to slink back
at his heels to the barn, fully conscious that his chance to escape was
gone.

News of this attempt reached the King, and the next day, when he met his
son, he said sarcastically, "Ah, you are still here then? I thought that
by this time you would have been in Paris."

All the boy's spirit had not been crushed out of him, and he dared to
answer, "I certainly would have been there now had I really wished it."

Again he tried to escape, and again he was caught, and this time he was
brought directly to the King. The father stared at his son as though he
were some wild beast, and then said angrily: "Why did you attempt to
desert?"

"I wanted to escape because you never treat me like your son, but like
some common slave."

"You're a cowardly deserter," said the King, "without any feelings of
honor."

"I have as much honor as you have," answered Fritz, "and I've done only
what I've heard you say you would have done if you had been treated as I
have."

The King, maddened beyond description, drew his sword, and would have
struck the boy had not a general in attendance thrown himself between
them, exclaiming: "Sire, you may kill me, but spare your son."

The boy was taken out of the room and locked in prison, where he was
guarded by two sentries with fixed bayonets. The King proclaimed him a
deserter from the army, and orde