rshal ought to have warned me."

"Ah! he knows you, does he? Come, let us walk about. What did you wish
to say? What do you think of this garden?"

He ordered me to speak of his garden! I should have said I knew
nothing of gardens to any one else, but if he chose to think me a
connoisseur I must fain pretend to be one. At the risk of exposing my
ignorance, I replied that it was superb.

"But," he said, "the gardens at Versailles are far finer."

"I own it, sire; but that is because of the fountains."

"True; but it is not my fault. There is no water here. I have spent
more than three hundred thousand crowns, but without success."

"Three hundred thousand crowns, sire! If your majesty spent that sum,
there should have been abundance of water."

"Ah! ah! I see you are a hydraulic architect."

Could I tell him he was mistaken? I was afraid of displeasing him, so
I simply bent my head. This could be taken for yes or no. Thank God,
he did not continue to talk on this subject, or I should have been
terribly put to it, for I did not know the very rudiments of
hydraulics.

Still walking up and down, and turning his head right and left, he
asked me what the Venetian forces, naval and military, amounted to.
Now I was on my own ground. "Twenty men of war, sire, and a large
number of galleys."

"And what land forces?"

"Seventy thousand men, sire, all subjects of the republic, and
counting all that, only one man from each village."

"That is not true. I suppose you want to amuse me with your fables.
You must be a financier; tell me, what do you think of the taxes?"

This was the first interview I had ever had with royalty. Considering
his style, his abrupt change of subject, and his sudden digressions, I
felt as tho I had been called on to act in one of those improvised
Italian comedies in which, if the actor stops short for a word, the
pit and the gallery hiss him mercilessly. I immediately assumed the
style of a financier, and replied that I was acquainted with the
theory of taxation.

"That is what I want," he replied, "for the practise does not concern
you."

"There are three kinds of taxes, taking into consideration their
effects: one is ruinous, one is unfortunately necessary, and the third
is always excellent."

"That is good; go on."

"The ruinous tax is the royal tax; the necessary one is the military
one; and the excellent one is the popular tax."

I wanted to throw him off his beat a little, as I