Bobby, having passed the outpost, carried the rest of the situation by assault. He rushed into the dining-room and kissed his mother, with one eye on the cake.

"Mother, here's company to supper! Oh, look at the cake! B-O-B-Y'!

Mother! That's awful!"

Mrs. Thorpe looked at the cake. "Poor Pepy," she said. "Suppose she had made it 'Booby'?" Then she saw Ferdinand William Otto, and went over, somewhat puzzled, with her hand out. "I am very glad Bobby brought you,"

she said. "He has so few little friends--"

Then she stopped, for the Prince had brought his heels together sharply, and, bending over her hand, had kissed it, exactly as he kissed his Aunt Annunciata's when he went to have tea with her. Mrs. Thorpe was fairly startled, not at the kiss, but at the grace with which the tribute was rendered.

Then she looked down, and it restored her composure to find that Ferdinand William Otto, too, had turned eyes toward the cake. He was, after all, only a hungry small boy. With quick tenderness she stooped and kissed him gravely on the forehead. Caresses were strange to Ferdinand William Otto. His warm little heart leaped and pounded. At that moment, he would have died for her!

Mr. Thorpe came home a little late. He kissed Bobby twelve times, and one to grow on. He shook hands absently with the visitor, and gave the Fraulein the evening paper--an extravagance on which he insisted, although one could read the news for nothing by going to the cafe on the corner. Then he drew his wife aside.

"Look here!" he said. "Don't tell Bobby--no use exciting him, and of course it's not our funeral anyhow but there's a report that the Crown Prince has been kidnapped. And that's not all. The old King is dying!"

"How terrible!"

"Worse than that. The old King gone and no Crown Prince! It may mean almost any sort of trouble! I've closed up at the Park for the night."

His arm around his wife, he looked through the doorway to where Bobby and Ferdinand were counting the candles. "It's made me think pretty hard," he said. "Bobby mustn't go around alone the way he's been doing.

All Americans here are considered millionaires. If the Crown Prince could go, think how easy--"

His arm tightened around his wife, and together they went in to the birthday feast. Ferdinand William Otto was hungry. He ate eagerly--chicken, fruit compote, potato salad--again shades of the Court physicians, who fed him at night a balanced ration of milk, egg, and zwieback! Bobby also ate busily, and conversation languished.

Then the moment came when, the first cravings appeased, they sat back in their chairs while Pepy cleared the table and brought in a knife to cut the cake. Mr. Thorpe had excused himself for a moment. Now he came back, with a bottle wrapped in a newspaper, and sat down again.

"I thought," he said, "as this is a real occasion, not exactly Robert's coming of age, but marking his arrival at years of discretion, the period when he ceases to be a small boy and becomes a big one, we might drink a toast to it."

"Robert!" objected the big boy's mother.

"A teaspoonful each, honey," he begged. "It changes it from a mere supper to a festivity."

He poured a few drops of wine into the children's glasses, and filled them up with water. Then he filled the others, and sat smiling, this big young man, who had brought his loved ones across the sea, and was trying to make them happy up a flight of stone stairs, above a concierge's bureau that smelled of garlic.

"First," he said, "I believe it is customary to toast the King. Friends, I give you the good King and brave soldier, Ferdinand of Livonia."

They stood up to drink it, and even Pepy had a glass.

Ferdinand William Otto was on his feet first. He held his glass up in his right hand, and his eyes shone. He knew what to do. He had seen the King's health drunk any number of times.

"To His Majesty, Ferdinand of Livonia," he said solemnly. "God keep the King!"

Over their glasses Mrs. Thorpe's eyes met her husband's. How they trained their children here!

But Ferdinand William Otto had not finished. "I give you," he said, in his clear young treble, holding his glass, "the President of the United States--The President!"

"The President!" said Mr. Thorpe.

They drank again, except the Fraulein, who disapproved of children being made much of, and only pretended to sip her wine.

"Bobby," said his mother, with a catch in her voice, "haven't you something to suggest--as a toast?"

Bobby's eyes were on the cake; he came back with difficulty.

"Well," he meditated, "I guess--would 'Home' be all right?"

"Home!" they all said, a little shakily, and drank to it.

Home! To the Thorpes, a little house on a shady street in America; to the Fraulein, a thatched cottage in the mountains of Germany and an old mother; to Pepy, the room in a tenement where she went at night; to Ferdinand William Otto, a formal suite of apartments in the Palace, surrounded by pomp, ordered by rule and precedent, hardened by military discipline, and unsoftened by family love, save for the grim affection of the old King.

Home!

After all, Pepy's plan went astray, for the Fraulein got the china baby, and Ferdinand William Otto the Lincoln penny.

"That," said Bobby's father, "is a Lincoln penny, young man. It bears the portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Have you ever heard of him?"

The Prince looked up. Did he not know the "Gettysburg Address" by heart?

"Yes, sir," he said. "The--my grandfather thinks that President Lincoln was a very great man."

"One of the world's greatest. I hardly thought, over here--" Mr. Thorpe paused and looked speculatively at the boy. "You'd better keep that penny where you won't lose it," he said soberly. "It doesn't hurt us to try to be good. If you're in trouble, think of the difficulties Abraham Lincoln surmounted. If you want to be great, think how great he was."

He was a trifle ashamed of his own earnestness. "All that for a penny, young man!"

The festivities were taking a serious turn. There was a little packet at each plate, and now Bobby's mother reached over and opened hers.

"Oh!" she said, and exhibited a gaudy tissue paper bonnet. Everybody had one. Mr. Thorpe's was a dunce's cap, and Fraulein's a giddy Pierrette of black and white. Bobby had a military cap. With eager fingers Ferdinand William Otto opened his; he had never tasted this delicious paper-cap joy before.

It was a crown, a sturdy bit of gold paper, cut into points and set with red paste jewels--a gem of a crown. He was charmed. He put it on his head, with the unconsciousness of childhood, and posed delightedly.

The Fraulein looked at Prince Ferdinand William Otto, and slowly the color left her lean face. She stared. It was he, then, and none other.

Stupid, not to have known at the beginning! He, the Crown Prince, here in the home of these barbarous Americans, when, by every plan that had been made, he should now be in the hands of those who would dispose of him.

"I give you," said Mr. Thorpe, raising his glass toward his wife, "the giver of the feast. Boys, up with you!"

It was then that the Fraulein, making an excuse, slipped out of the room.

CHAPTER XXXVI. THE KING IS DEAD

Now at last the old King's hour had come. Mostly he slept, as though his body, eager for its long rest, had already given up the struggle.

Stimulants, given by his devoted physician, had no effect. Other physicians there were, a group of them, but it was Doctor Wiederman who stood by the bed and waited.

Father Gregory, his friend of many years, had come again from Etzel, and it was he who had administered the sacrament. The King had roused for it, and had smiled at the father.

"So!" he said, almost in a whisper, "you would send me clean! It is hard to scour an old kettle."