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Forbidden The beauty of Ger-man laws is that when you learnall the things that you cannot doyou begin to find out that thethings you can do are not worth-a hang in the doing

As soon as a learned toread he or she began life by

these laws If you could notread so much the worse foryou had to pay a guide whocharged you almost as much ss thefull cost of the fine

The opposition political party inthe United States is always howlingmilitarism without the slightestidea of what militarism really isOne side please in Barscheit whenan officer comes along or take theconsequences If you carelesslybumped into him you were knockeddown If objected you werearrested If you struck back tento you received a beating withthe flat of a saber And never nev-er mistake the soldiery for the po-lice that IB to say never ask anofficer to direct you to any placeThis is regarded in the light of aninsult The cublieutenants do moreto keep a passable thepassage of said cublieutenantsthan all the magistrates put togetti

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er How they used to swaggerand down the Konlgsstrassethe Platz in and out of the restaurants I remember doingsidestepping myself and I wasdiplomat supposed to befrom the rank discourtesies ofmilitary But that was early incareer

In a year not so remote as notbe readily recalled theStates packed me off to Barscheitbecause I had an uncle who wasSenator Some papers wereme the permission to hang outshingle reading American Consuland the promise of my boardkeep My amusements were topaid out of my own pocketStraightway J purchased three horses found a capable Japanese valetand selected a cozy house near thebarracks which stood west of the

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Volksgarten on a pretty lakebeautiful road ran around thisof water and it wasnt longofficers began to pass commentsthe riding of that wild AmericanAs I detest what is known as parkriding you may very wellthat I circled the lake at awhich must have opened theof the easygoing officers Iquite chummy with a few of themand I may speak of occasionsI did not step off the sidewalkthey came along A man doestoward gaining the affection of for-eigners by giving a good dinnerand then than by International lawI gained considerable fame bylittle dinners at Mullers Rathskeller under the Continental Hotel

months passed duringI rode read drove and dinedactual labors of the consulatecared for by a German clerk

Wore about the businessI did

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is rather difficult in thesedays for a man who takessuch scant interest in foreign

a whilom diplomat for that to follow the

continual geographical disturbancesof European surfaces Thus I cannot distinctly recall the exact loca-tion of the Grand Duchy of BarEchelt or of the neighboring prin-cipality of Doppelkinn It moots myneeds and purposes however tosay that Berlin and Vienna wereeasily accessible and that a threehours journey would bring youunder the shadow of

Range where in my diplo-matic days I used often to huntthe bear that walks like a man

Barscheit was known among hersister states as the meddler themaker of trouble and the duke

as Old Grumpy Brummbar Touse a familiar Yankee expressionBarscheit had a finger in every pieWhenever there was a politicalbroth making whether in ItalyGermany or Austria Barscheitnoald snatch up a ladle and startin She took care of her own af-fairs so easily that she had plentyof time to concern herself with theaffairs of her neighbors This Isnot to advance the opinion thatBarscheit was wholly modern far

on time out of a grain of sand amountain Of course there mighthave been other causes but withthese Im net familiar

This Duchy of Barscheit is worthlooking into Imagine a countrywith telegraph and telephonemedieval customs a country Withelectric lights railways surfacecars hotel elevators and ancientlaws Something of the customs of vthe duchy must be told In thepassing though for my part I amvigorously against explanatory

in stories of action Barscheitbristled with militarism the littleman always imitates the big onebut lacks the big mans excuses

and of scribbling ones name acrosspassports I know of no better definition I forgot the largess ofmy office was

Presently there were terribleThe old reigning grand duke

desired peace of mind and movingdeterminedly toward this end hedeclared in public that his niece theyoung and tender Princess Hildegarde should wed the Prince ofDoppelkinn whose vineyards gavehim a fine income This was finali-ty the avuncular guardian hadwaited long enough for his willfulward to make up her mind as to theselection of a suitable husbandnow he determined to take a handin the matter And you shall seehow well he managed it

It is scarcely necessary for me tostate that her highness had her ownideas of what a husband should

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from it The fault of Barscheit maybe traced hack to a certain histori-cal pillar of salt easily recalled byall those who attended Sundayschool Rubbering is a vulgarphrase and I disdain to use it

When a woman looks around Itis Invariably a portent of troublethe man forgets his important engagement and runs amuck knock-ing over people principles andprincipalities If Aspasia had notobserved Pericles that memorableday if there had not been anoblique slant to Calypsos eyes asUlysses passed her way If theeager offered fa-vorable comment on Samsons ringlets in fact if all the women inhistory and romance had goneabout their affairs as they shouldhave done what uninterestingreading history would be todayson this is a story of a womanT O inntAd around and of a man

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Militarism entered into andthe civic laws

There were three things youmight do without offense youmight bathe eat and sleep onlyyou must not sleep out loud Thecitizen of Barscheit was hemmed-in by a set of laws had theirbirth in the dark dungeons of theInquisition They congealed theblood of a man born and bred ina commercial country If you broke-a law you were relentlessly punished there was no mercy InAmerica we make laws and thenhide them in dulllooking volumeswhich the public have neither thetime nor the inclination to readIn this duchy of mine It was different you ran into a oa ev-ery corner in every park in everypublic building little oblong signsenameled which told you that youcould not do something or other

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formi-dable regard for romance and theprincess was up to the mannerof her kind If she could not marrv romantically she refused to marry at all

1 can readily appreciate her uncles perturbation I do not knowhow many princelings she thrustInto utter duness She wouldnever marry a man who wore glasses this one was too tall that onetoo short and when one happenedalong who was without visibleearmarks or signs of being shopworn her refusal was based uponjust Because a weapon as

as tho fabled spear of Parsifal She had spurned tho addresses of prince Mischler laughsat those of the Count of

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guard who was Im goodown optaioa for

any woman Every train brought-to the capital some suitor with aconKonated hyphenated name and apedigree as long as s bores idea

story But the princess didnot care for pedigrees that weresquinteyed bowlegged One andall of them she cast aside as un-worthy her consideration Thenlike the ancient worm the duketurned She should marry Doppelkinn who having wife to do thehonors In his castle was whollyagreeable

The Prince of Doppciklnn reignedoer the neighboring principality Ifyou stood in the middle of ft andwere a beseball player you could

a stone across the frontier inany direction But the vineyardswere among the finest in EuropeThe prince was a widower andamong his own people was affection-ately styled der Rotnasig whichI believe designates an illuminatedproboscis When he wasnt fishingfor rainbow trout he was sleeping-in his cellars He was often missing at the monthly reviews but

ever worried they knew whereto find him And besides he mightJust as well sleep in his cellars asIn his carl rage for he never rode-a horse if he ould get out of doing so He wag really goodnatured-and easygoing so long as no oneerased him severely and you couldtell him a joke once and depend uprn his understanding it immediate-ly which is more than I can sayfor the duke

Years and years ago the princehaffTfaSfa son but at iEeage of three the boy had run awayfrom the castle confines and noone over heard of him againenemies of the prince whisperedamong themselves that the boy hadrun away to escape compulsory mili-tary service but the boys age pre-cluded this accusation The princeadvertised after the fashion

times sent out detectives andnotified his various brothers buthis trouble went for nothing Notthe slightest trace of the boy couldbe found So he was mourned fora season regretted and then forgotten the prince adopted thegrapearbor

I eaw the prince once I do notblame the Princess Hildegarde forher rebellion The prince was notonly old he was fat and ugly withlittle elephantlike eyes that wereaways veinshot run ofmischief He might have made agood father but I have nothing toprove this Those bottles of spark-ling Moselle which he failed to dispose of to the American trade hegave to his brother In Barscheit crdrank himself He was sixtyeightyears old

A nephew throe times removedwas waiting for the day when beshould wabble around In the princesshoes He was a lieutenant In thedukes bodyguard a qucktemperedheady chap Well he never wobbledaround in his uncles shoes for henever got the chance-

I hadnt been in Barschlet a weekbefore I heard a great deal about theprincess She was a famous horsewoman This made me extremelyanxious to meet her Yet for nearlysix months I never even got so murhas a glimpse of her Half of the sixmonths she was traveling throughAustria and the other half she keptout of my Intentionallyshe knew nothing of my existencesimply fate moved us about blindlyAt court she was invariably indis-posed and at the first court ball sheretired before I arrived I got up atall times galloped over all roadsbut never did I see hers She rodealone too part of the

The one picture of her which Iwas lucky enough to see had beentaken she was six and meantnothing to me In the way of Identification For all I knew I might havepassed her on the road She becameto be the princess In the invslblecloak passing me often and doubt-less deriding my efforts to discernher My curiosity became alarmingI couldnt sleep for the thought olher Finally we met but the meetingwas a great surprise to us both This

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