Six months passed, during which I rode, read, drove and dined, the

actual labors of the consulate being cared for by a German clerk who

knew more about the business than I did.

By this you will observe that diplomacy has degenerated into the gentle

art of exciting jaded palates and of scribbling one's name across

passports; I know of no better definition. I forget what the largess

of my office was.

Presently there were terrible doings. The old reigning grand duke

desired peace of mind; and moving determinedly toward this end, he

declared in public that his niece, the young and tender Princess

Hildegarde, should wed the Prince of Doppelkinn, whose vineyards gave

him a fine income. This was finality; the avuncular guardian had

waited long enough for his wilful ward to make up her mind as to the

selection of a suitable husband; now _he_ determined to take a hand in

the matter. And you shall see how well he managed it.

It is scarcely necessary for me to state that her Highness had her own

ideas of what a husband should be like, gathered, no doubt, from

execrable translations from "Ouida" and the gentle Miss Braddon. A

girl of twenty usually has a formidable regard for romance, and the

princess was fully up to the manner of her kind. If she could not

marry romantically, she refused to marry at all.

I can readily appreciate her uncle's perturbation. I do not know how

many princelings she thrust into utter darkness. She would _never_

marry a man who wore glasses; this one was too tall, that one too

short; and when one happened along who was without visible earmarks or

signs of being shop-worn her refusal was based upon just--"Because!"--a

weapon as invincible as the fabled spear of Parsifal. She had spurned

the addresses of Prince Mischler, laughed at those of the Count of

------ - ------ (the short dash indicates the presence of a hyphen) and

General Muerrisch, of the emperor's body-guard, who was, I'm sure, good

enough--in his own opinion--for any woman. Every train brought to the

capital some suitor with a consonated, hyphenated name and a pedigree

as long as a bore's idea of a funny story. But the princess did not

care for pedigrees that were squint-eyed or bow-legged. One and all of

them she cast aside as unworthy her consideration. Then, like the

ancient worm, the duke turned. She should marry Doppelkinn, who,

having no wife to do the honors in his castle, was wholly agreeable.

The Prince of Doppelkinn reigned over the neighboring principality. If

you stood in the middle of it and were a baseball player, you could

throw a stone across the frontier in any direction. But the vineyards

were among the finest in Europe. The prince was a widower, and among

his own people was affectionately styled "_der Rotnäsig_," which, I

believe, designates an illuminated proboscis. When he wasn't fishing

for rainbow trout he was sleeping in his cellars. He was often missing

at the monthly reviews, but nobody ever worried; they knew where to

find him. And besides, he might just as well sleep in his cellars as

in his carriage, for he never rode a horse if he could get out of doing

so. He was really good-natured and easy-going, so long as no one

crossed him severely; and you could tell him a joke once and depend

upon his understanding it immediately, which is more than I can say for

the duke.




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