ry Prussian, the Baron
von Habelschwert, seemed to have derived benefit from his violent
impingement on the left shoulder of the Honourable John Ruffin. Though
his more mature nature should have been fixed, there can be no doubt
that he wore a softer air, and no longer trod the English sand with the
air of a disdainful but perfumed conqueror.

He was by no means an observant man; but stupid as he was, he could not
fail to perceive the change in his pupil, for it was forced on his
attention by the fact that the prince did not kick his shins for
seventy-two hours. The baron was at first surprised, then dismayed: he
feared that the fine Hohenzollern spirit of his young charge might have
suffered a lasting, weakening shock from his encounter with that angel
child; and when the prince for three successive mornings and afternoons
did not assault a single little girl, however much smaller than himself
those who came within his reach chanced to be, the fear deepened.

Oddly enough the subdued prince did not seem to regard Pollyooly with
the bitterness which might have been expected. He did not even shun
the sight of her. Indeed, as he made his royal progress along the
beach, he would pause and regard her with puzzled but manifestly quite
respectful interest, as she played actively not far from her little
brother, the Lump, with her young friends.

The baron regarded the Honourable John Ruffin in a very different
manner; he could not set eyes on him without scowling horribly. It was
the desire of his heart to have the blood of Pollyooly's protector; and
though the conduct of Pollyooly had oddly but considerably weakened his
confident expectation of the immediate subjugation of the English
people by his imperial master he longed with a greater fervour than had
ever before burned in him for THE DAY.

The conversations, strictly confined to the British tongue, between the
baron and his pupil, were always of the briefest and often truculent.
The prince was a silent child, by reason of the fact that he had
nothing to say. But one morning as they came down to the beach he
startled the baron by saying:

"I want to blay."

"Yes, 'ighness, whad shall we blay ad?" said the Baron von Habelschwert
uncomfortably, after a little hesitation.

"I don't want to blay wiz you," said the prince in a tone which showed,
beyond any possibility of misconception, that on that matter his mind
was made up.

"Bud zere's no one else for you