And had violated all etiquette, too, had he but known it!

"Haeckle?" repeated the doorkeeper. "I think--come in, comrade. I will inquire."

For the name of Haeckel was, just then, one curiously significant.

He disappeared, and old Adelbert waited. When the doorkeeper returned, it was to tell him to follow him, and to lead the way downstairs.

There dawned on the old man's eyes a curious sight. In a long basement room were perhaps thirty students, each armed with a foil, and wearing a wire mask. A half dozen lay figures on springs stood in the center in a low row, and before these perspiring youths thrust and parried. Some of them, already much scarred, stood and watched. This, then, was where the students prepared themselves for duels. Here they fought the mimic battles that were later on to lead to the much-prized scars.

Old Adelbert stared with curious, rather scornful eyes. The rapier he detested. Give him a saber, and a free field, and he would show them.

Even yet, he felt, he had not lost his cunning. And the saber requires cunning as well as strength.

Two or three students came toward him at once. "You are seeking Haeckle?" one of them asked.

"I am. I knew him, but not well. Lately, however, I have thought--is he here?"

The students exchanged glances. "He is not here," one said. "Where did you know him?"

"He came frequently to a shop I know of--a cobbler's shop, a neighborhood meeting-place. A fine lad. I liked him. But recently he has not come, and knowing his corps, I came here to find him."

They had hoped to learn something from him, and he knew nothing. "He has disappeared," they told him. "He is not at his lodging, and he has left his classes. He went away suddenly, leaving everything. That is all we know."

It sounded sinister. Old Adelbert, heavy-hearted, turned away and climbed again to the street. That gateway was closed, too. And he felt a pang of uneasiness. What could have happened to the boy? Was the world, after all, only a place of trouble?

But now came good fortune, and, like evil, it came not singly. The operation was over, and his daughter on the mend. The fee was paid also.

And the second followed on the heels of the first.

He did not like Americans. Too often, in better days, had he heard the merits of the American republic compared with the shortcomings of his own government. When, as happened now and then, he met the American family on the staircase, he drew sharply aside that no touch of republicanism might contaminate his uniform.

On that day, however, things changed.

First of all, he met the American lad in the hallway, and was pleased to see him doff his bit of a cap. Not many, nowadays, uncovered a head to him. The American lad was going down; Adelbert was climbing, one step at a time, and carrying a small basket of provisions.

The American boy, having passed, turned, hesitated, went back. "I'd like to carry that for you, if you don't mind."

"Carry it?"

"I am very strong," said the American boy stoutly.

So Adelbert gave up his basket, and the two went up. Four long flights of stone stairs led to Adelbert's room. The ascent took time and patience.

At the door Adelbert paused. Then, loneliness overcoming prejudice, "Come in," he said.

The bare little room appealed to the boy. "It's very nice, it?" he said.

"There's nothing to fall over."

"And but little to sit on," old Adelbert added dryly. "However, two people require but two chairs. Here is one."

But the boy would not sit down. He ranged the room, frankly curious, exclaimed at the pair of ring doves who lived in a box tied to the window-sill, and asked for crumbs for them. Adelbert brought bread from his small store.

The boy cheered him. His interest in the old saber, the intentness with which he listened to its history, the politeness with which he ignored his host's infirmity, all won the old man's heart.

These Americans downstairs were not all bad, then. They were too rich, of course. No one should have meat three times a day, as the meat-seller reported they did. And they were paying double rent for the apartment below. But that, of course, they could not avoid, not knowing the real charge.

The boy was frankly delighted. And when old Adelbert brought forth from his basket a sausage and, boiling it lightly, served him a slice between two pieces of bread, an odd friendship was begun that was to have unforeseen consequences. They had broken bread together.

Between the very old and the very young come sometimes these strong affections. Perhaps it is that age harkens back to the days of its youth, and by being very old, becomes young again. Or is it that children are born old, with the withered, small faces of all the past, and must, year by year, until their maturity, shed this mantle of age?

Gradually, over the meal, and the pigeons, and what not, old Adelbert unburdened his heart. He told of his years at the Opera, where he had kept his glasses clean and listened to the music until he knew by heart even the most difficult passages. He told of the Crown Prince, who always wished opera-glasses, not because he needed them, but because he liked to turn them wrong end before, and thus make the audience appear at a great distance. And then he told of the loss of his position.

The American lad listened politely, but his mind was on the Crown Prince. "Does he wear a crown?" he demanded. "I saw him once in a carriage, but I think he had a hat."

"At the coronation he will wear a crown."

"Do people do exactly what he tells them?"

Old Adelbert was not certain. He hedged, rather. "Probably, whenever it is good for him."

"Huh! What's the use of being a prince?" observed the boy, who had heard of privileges being given that way before. "When will he be a king?"

"When the old King dies. He is very old now. I was in a hospital once, after a battle. And he came in. He put his hand on my shoulder, like this" he illustrated it on the child's small one--and said-- Considering that old Adelbert no longer loved his King, it is strange to record that his voice broke.

"Will he die soon?" Bobby put in. He found kings as much of a novelty as to Prince Ferdinand William Otto they were the usual thing. Bobby's idea of kings, however, was of the "off with his head" order.

"Who knows? But when he does, the city will learn at once. The great bell of the Cathedral, which never rings save at such times, will toll.

They say it is a sound never to be forgotten. I, of course, have never heard it. When it tolls, all in the city will fall on their knees and pray. It is the custom." Bobby, reared to strict Presbyterianism and accustomed to kneeling but once a day, and that at night beside his bed, in the strict privacy of his own apartment, looked rather startled.

"What will they pray for?" he said.

And old Adelbert, with a new bitterness, replied that the sons of kings needed much prayer. Sometimes they were hard and did cruel things.

"And then the Crown Prince will be a king," Bobby reflected. "If I were a king, I'd make people stand around. And I'd have an automobile and run it myself. But has the Crown Prince only a grandfather, and no father?"

"He died--the boy's father. He was murdered, and the Princess his mother also."

Bobby's eyes opened wide. "Who did it?"

"Terrorists," said old Adelbert. And would not be persuaded to say more.

That night at dinner Bobby Thorpe delivered himself of quite a speech.

He sat at the table, and now and then, when the sour-faced governess looked at her plate, he slipped a bit of food to his dog, which waited beside him.

"There's a very nice old man upstairs," he said. "He has a fine sword, and ring-doves, and a wooden leg. And he used to rent opera-glasses to the Crown Prince, only he turned them around. I'm going to try that with yours, mother. We had sausage together, and he has lost his position, and he's never been on the Scenic Railway, father. I'd like some tickets for him. He would like riding, I'm sure, because walking must be pretty hard. And what I want to know is this: Why can't you give him a job, father?"

Bobby being usually taciturn at the table, and entirely occupied with food, the family stared at him.

"What sort of a job, son? A man with one leg!"

"He doesn't need legs to chop tickets with."