first. ("We are all of the
same clay," says Romano.)

And down in the orchestra floor they would find Romano's body, likewise
unrecognizable.

And on my charred breast they would find the half of a twenty-mark
piece. And on his charred chest they would find the half of a
twenty-mark piece.

And they would put the two together and discover that they match.

Consternation, speculation!

Someone suggests that the mysterious gold pieces be photographed for
publication and the engraver who made the monogram, and the jeweler who
sold the two chains come forward as witnesses.

Meanwhile the identity of my body is established. That of Romano's
follows. _Scandalum magnatum!_ But what are you going to do about it,
_Messieurs_?

If you had only known it a week ago! A prison _a la_ Princess Ahlden, or
the Danish Queen Caroline Matilda, for me, disgraceful dismissal for
Romano, for times are happily past when comely gentlemen, who have the
wit to amuse royal ladies, durst be murdered in cold blood like
Koenigsmarck, or be-handed, be-headed and cut into ninety-nine pieces as
Struensee was in Copenhagen market-square.

What are you going to do about it, King, George, Frederick Augustus?

I'll tell you. You will bury me with the pomp of kings; and your
sycophants will print beautiful stories about me, asserting that I died
trying to rescue others, or did something of the sort; and your Court
Chaplains will weep and pray and lie for me. And the tip of Queen
Carola's nose will be redder than ever.

* * * * *

DRESDEN, _September 1, 1898_.

My young friend Bernhardt is doing me a great service and himself a lot
of harm.

A good-natured, tractable boy _au fond_, they made him a poltroon and
worse by their persecutions, their meanness, their petty tyranny. He is
proud, and they sent him to reside on a village manure heap; he is
ambitious, and must drill raw recruits from morn till night; he is eager
to learn and they try to embalm his intellect with tracts and kill his
initiative by the endless, watery _ennui_ of tu-penny environment.

Of course, he gets desperate and kicks over the traces, and while
attracting the dear family's disapproving attention, I am more free than
ever to devote myself to my Romano.

Bernhardt's "latest" is really inexcusable. "I wonder we don't turn
tigers with the education we receive," said one of the brothers of Louis
XVI when upbraided for thoughtlessness