n durance
vile. As for me, I prefer Kentucky, where every man is a colonel, and
you never make a mistake. And these kingdoms!" He indulged in subdued
laughter. "They are always like comic operas. I find myself looking
around every moment for the merry villagers so happy and so gay (at
fifteen dollars the week), the eternal innkeeper and the perennial
soubrette his daughter, the low comedian and the self-conscious tenor.
Heigho! and not a soul in Bleiberg knows me, nor cares.

"I'd rather talk five minutes to a pretty woman than eat stuffed
pheasants the year around, and the stuffed pheasant is about all
Bleiberg can boast of. Well, here goes for a voyage of discovery;" and
he passed down the stone steps to the pier, quite unconscious of the
admiring glances of the women who fluttered back and forth on the wide
balconies above.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon; a fresh wind redolent of pine and
resin blew across the lake. Maurice climbed into a boat and pulled away
with a strong, swift stroke, enjoying the liberation of his muscles. A
quarter of a mile out he let the oars drift and took his bearings. He
saw the private gardens of the king and the archbishop, and, convinced
that a closer view would afford him entertainment, he caught up the oars
again and moved inland.

The royal gardens ran directly into the water, while those of the
archbishop were protected by a wall of brick five or six feet in height,
in the center of which was a gate opening on the water. Behind the gate
was a small boat dock. Maurice plied the oars vigorously. He skirted the
royal gardens, and the smell of newly mown lawns filled the air. Soon he
was gliding along the sides of the moss-grown walls. A bird chirped in
the overhanging boughs. He was about to cast loose the oars again, when
the boat was brought to a violent stop. A few yards waterward from the
gate there lay, hidden in the shadowed water, a sunken pier. On one of
the iron piles the boat had become impaled.

Maurice was tumbled into the bow of the boat, which began rapidly to
fill. First he swore, then he laughed, for he was possessed of infinite
good humor. The only thing left for him to do was to swim for the gate.
With a rueful glance at his thin clothes, he dropped himself over the
side of the wreck and struck out toward the gate. The water, having its
source from the snowclad mountains, was icy. He was glad enough to grasp
the lower bars of the gate and draw himself up. He