en with this.

The other night I lectured for a Vienna charity; and at the end of
it Livy and I were introduced to a princess who is aunt to the heir
apparent of the imperial throne--a beautiful lady, with a beautiful
spirit, and very cordial in her praises of my books and thanks to me
for writing them; and glad to meet me face to face and shake me by the
hand--just the kind of princess that adorns a fairy tale and makes it
the prettiest tale there is.

Very well, we long ago found that when you are noticed by supremacies,
the correct etiquette is to go, within a couple of days, and pay your
respects in the quite simple form of writing your name in the Visitors'
Book kept in the office of the establishment. That is the end of it, and
everything is squared up and ship-shape.

So at noon today Livy and I drove to the Archducal palace, and got by
the sentries all right, and asked the grandly-uniformed porter for
the book and said we wished to write our names in it. And he called
a servant in livery and was sending us up stairs; and said her Royal
Highness was out but would soon be in. Of course Livy said "No--no--we
only want the book;" but he was firm, and said, "You are Americans?"

"Yes."

"Then you are expected, please go up stairs."

"But indeed we are not expected--please let us have the book and--"

"Her Royal Highness will be back in a very little while--she commanded
me to tell you so--and you must wait."

Well, the soldiers were there close by--there was no use trying to
resist--so we followed the servant up; but when he tried to beguile us
into a drawing-room, Livy drew the line; she wouldn't go in. And she
wouldn't stay up there, either. She said the princess might come in at
any moment and catch us, and it would be too infernally ridiculous for
anything. So we went down stairs again--to my unspeakable regret. For it
was too darling a comedy to spoil. I was hoping and praying the princess
would come, and catch us up there, and that those other Americans who
were expected would arrive, and be taken for impostors by the portier,
and shot by the sentinels--and then it would all go into the papers, and
be cabled all over the world, and make an immense stir and be perfectly
lovely. And by that time the princess would discover that we were not
the right ones, and the Minister of War would be ordered out, and
the garrison, and they would come for us, and there would be another
prodigious time, and that would