dalbert" with his own ears!

"Bollyooly? A beautiful name!" cried the grand duke with enthusiasm.

Then came the great event of Prince Adalbert's life. The little boy
who was batting hit the ball right into his hands. He grabbed at it;
and by a miracle it stuck in his fingers.

His side leapt and shrieked as one child; and the grand duke leapt and
bellowed. The shock of his descent on the sea-wall made it quiver for
many feet round him.

He turned upon his slim equerry, seized his arm, and shook him as the
wind shakes a blade of corn.

"Did you see zat? Id is ze creeket! 'e caught 'im out," he bellowed
in stentorian tones which rang out far across the marsh. "Bollyooly
has made 'im zlim! She has made 'im roon! She has made 'im peenk!
She has taught 'im ze creeket! She shall rewarded be! I will gonfer
on 'er ze Order of Chastity of Lippe-Schweidnitz of ze zecond class!"

He loosed his slim equerry, and hammered his enormous right palm with
his huge left fist.

The slim equerry shook his head (this time without any assistance from
his august master) and said:

"She is too young, your Highness. Ze order can only be gonferred on
ladies of twenty-von or elder."

"Zen I will gonfer it on 'er when she is twenty-von! Bud I will reward
'er alzo now! Vetch 'er!" cried the grand duke.

The slim equerry went down the sea-wall across the sands to Pollyooly.
The game stopped while he conferred with her. Pollyooly looked from
him to the fine, round figure on the sea-wall; then she patted her
hair, smoothed her frock, called to her young companions that she would
be back in a minute or two, and went with the slim equerry. She was
not timid, or even shy. Her estimate of the royal family of
Lippe-Schweidnitz had been formed from her knowledge of Prince
Adalbert; and it was not a high one. That royal family left her
unimpressed and certainly unrevering. She was hardly curious about the
grand duke.

On the way to him the slim equerry asked her her name, and told her to
be sure to address the grand duke as "your Highness."

On the sea-wall he took her hand, grew rigid, saluted, and said:

"I present the Fraeulein Bollyooly von Bride to your Highness."

Like the well-mannered child she was, Pollyooly dropped a curtsey.

The grand duke seized her hand, and shook it warmly, and cried:

"Mein Gott! if you were zeven--five years elder, I would keess you!
Bud id is far to sdoop. You haf done great good to my