"No." He hesitated. "But there are a good many soldiers here. I--I never saw these steps before."

"I should think not," boasted Bobby. "I discovered them. I guess nobody else in the world knows about them. I put up a flag at the bottom and took possession. They're mine."

"Really!" said Prince Ferdinand William Otto, quite delighted. He would never have thought of such a thing.

A door of iron bars at the foot of the long flight of steps--there were four of them--stood open. Here daylight, which had been growing fainter, entirely ceased. And here Bobby, having replaced his mask, placed an air-rifle over his shoulder, and lighted a candle and held it out to the Crown Prince.

"You can carry it," he said. "Only don't let it drip on you. You'll spoil your clothes." There was a faintly scornful note in his voice, and Ferdinand William Otto was quick to hear it.

"I don't care at all about my clothes," he protested. And to prove it he deliberately tilted the candle and let a thin stream of paraffin run down his short jacket.

"You're a pretty good sport," Bobby observed. And from that time on he addressed His Royal Highness as "old sport."

"Walk faster, old sport," he would say. "That candle's pretty short, and we've got a long way to go." Or--"Say, old sport, I'll make you a mask like this, if you like. I made this one."

When they reached the old dungeon the candle was about done. There was only time to fashion another black mask out of a piece of cloth that bore a strange resemblance to a black waistcoat. The Crown Prince donned this with a wildly beating heart. Never in all his life had he been so excited. Even Dick Deadeye was interested, and gave up his scenting of the strange footsteps that he had followed through the passage, to watch the proceedings.

"We can get another candle, and come back and cook something," said the senior pirate, tying the mask on with Pieces of brown string. "It gets pretty smoky, but I can cook, you'd better believe."

So this wonderful boy could cook, also! The Crown Prince had never met any one with so many varied attainments. He gazed through the eyeholes, which were rather too far apart, in rapt admiration.

"As you haven't got a belt," Bobby said generously, "I'll give you the rifle. Ever hold a gun?"

"Oh, yes," said the Crown Prince. He did not explain that he had been taught to shoot on the rifle-range of his own regiment, and had won quite a number of medals. He possessed, indeed, quite a number of small but very perfect guns.

With the last gasp of the candle, the children prepared to depart. The senior pirate had already forgotten the two men he had trailed through the passage, and was eager to get outdoors.

"Ready!" he said. "Now, remember, old sport, we are pirates. No quarter, except to women and children. Shoot every man."

"Even if he is unarmed?" inquired the Crown Prince, who had also studied strategy and tactics, and felt that an unarmed man should be taken prisoner.

"Sure. We don't really shoot them, silly. Now. Get in step.

"'Fifteen men on a dead man's chest Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.'"

They marched up the steps and out through the opening at the top. If there were any who watched, outside the encircling growth of evergreens, they were not on the lookout for two small boys and a dog. And, as became pirates, the children made a stealthy exit.

Then began, for the Crown Prince, such a day of joy as he had never known before. Even the Land of Delight faded before this new bliss of stalking from tree to tree, of killing unsuspecting citizens who sat on rugs on the ground and ate sausages and little cakes. Here and there, where a party had moved on, they salvaged a bit of food--the heel of a loaf, one of the small country apples. Shades of the Court Physicians, under whose direction the Crown Prince was daily fed a carefully balanced ration!

When they were weary, they stretched out on the ground, and the Crown Prince, whose bed was nightly dried with a warming-pan for fear of dampness, wallowed blissfully on earth still soft with the melting frosts of the winter. He grew muddy and dirty. He had had no hat, of course, and his bright hair hung over his forehead in moist strands. Now and then he drew a long breath of sheer happiness.

Around them circled the gayety of the Carnival, bands of students in white, with the tall peaked caps of Pierrots. Here and there was a scarlet figure, a devil with horns, who watched the crowd warily. A dog, with the tulle petticoats of a dancer tied around it and a great bow on its neck, made friends with Dick Deadeye, alias Tucker, and joined the group.

But, as dusk descended, the crowd gradually dispersed, some to supper, but some to gather in the Place and in the streets around the Palace.

For the rumor that the King was dying would not down.

At last the senior pirate consulted a large nickel watch.

"Gee! it's almost supper time," he said.

Prince Ferdinand William Otto consulted his own watch, the one with the inscription: "To Ferdinand William Otto, from his grandfather, on the occasion of his taking his first communion."

"Why can't you come home to supper with me?" asked the senior pirate.

"Would your folks kick up a row?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Would your family object?"

"There is only one person who would mind," reflected the Crown Prince, aloud, "and she will be angry anyhow. I--do you think your mother will be willing?"

"Willing? Sure she will! My governess--but I'll fix her. She's a German, and they're always cranky. Anyhow, it's my birthday. I'm always allowed a guest on birthdays."

So home together, gayly chatting, went the two children, along the cobble-paved streets of the ancient town, past old churches that had been sacked and pillaged by the very ancestors of one of them, taking short cuts through narrow passages that twisted and wormed their way between, and sometimes beneath, century-old stone houses; across the flower-market, where faint odors of dying violets and crushed lilies-of-the-valley still clung to the bare wooden booths; and so, finally, to the door of a tall building where, from the concierge's room beside the entrance, came a reek of stewing garlic.

Neither of the children had noticed the unwonted silence of the streets, which had, almost suddenly, succeeded the noise of the Carnival. What few passers-by they had seen had been hurrying in the direction of the Palace. Twice they had passed soldiers, with lanterns, and once one had stopped and flashed a light on them.

"Well, old sport!" said Bobby in English, "anything you can do for me?"

The soldier had passed on, muttering at the insolence of American children. The two youngsters laughed consumedly at the witticism. They were very happy, the lonely little American boy and the lonely little Prince--happy from sheer gregariousness, from the satisfaction of that strongest of human inclinations, next to love--the social instinct.

The concierge was out. His niece admitted them, and went back to her interrupted cooking. The children hurried up the winding stone staircase, with its iron rail and its gas lantern, to the second floor.

In the sitting-room, the sour-faced governess was darning a hole in a small stocking. She was as close as possible to the green-tile stove, and she was looking very unpleasant; for the egg-shaped darner only slipped through the hole, which was a large one. With an irritable gesture she took off her slipper, and, putting one coarse-stockinged foot on the fender, proceeded to darn by putting the slipper into the stocking and working over it.

Things looked unpropitious. The Crown Prince ducked behind Bobby.

The Fraulein looked at the clock.

"You are fifteen minutes late," she snapped, and bit the darning thread--not with rage, but because she had forgotten her scissors.

"I'm sorry, but you see--"

"Whom have you there?"

The Prince cowered. She looked quite like his grandfather when his tutor's reports had been unfavorable.

"A friend of mine," said Bobby, not a whit daunted.

The governess put down the stocking and rose. In so doing, she caught her first real glimpse of Ferdinand William Otto, and she staggered back.

"Holy Saints!" she said, and went white. Then she stared at the boy, and her color came back. "For a moment," she muttered "--but no. He is not so tall, nor has he the manner. Yes, he is much smaller!"

Which proves that, whether it wears it or not, royalty is always measured to the top of a crown.

In the next room Bobby's mother was arranging candles on a birthday cake in the center of the table. Pepy had iced the cake herself, and had forgotten one of the "b's" in "Bobby" so that the cake really read: "Boby--XII."

However, it looked delicious, and inside had been baked a tiny black china doll and a new American penny, with Abraham Lincoln's head on it.

The penny was for good fortune, but the doll was a joke of Pepy's, Bobby being aggressively masculine.