ry time you use the telegraph to send
orders in an emperor's name you commit an anachronism."

The count frowned and growled.

"Don't talk to me like that. It is not amusing."

"No; it is not funny. To see men like you fetching and carrying for dull
kings, who would drop through the gallows or go to planting turnips
without your brains--it does not appeal to my sense of humor or to my
imagination."

"You put it coarsely," remarked the old man grimly. "I shall perhaps have
a statue when I am gone."

"Quite likely; and mobs will rendezvous in its shadow to march upon the
royal palaces. If I were coming back to Europe I should go in for
something more interesting than furnishing brains for sickly kings."

"I dare say! Very likely you would persuade them to proclaim democracy
and brotherhood everywhere."

"On the other hand, I should become king myself."

"Don't be a fool, Mr. John Armitage. Much as you have grieved me, I
should hate to see you in a madhouse."

"My faculties, poor as they are, were never clearer. I repeat that if I
were going to furnish the brains for an empire I should ride in the state
carriage myself, and not be merely the driver on the box, who keeps the
middle of the road and looks out for sharp corners. Here is a plan ready
to my hand. Let me find that lost document, appear in Vienna and announce
myself Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl! I knew both men
intimately. You may remember that Frederick and I were born in the same
month. I, too, am Frederick Augustus! We passed commonly in America as
brothers. Many of the personal effects of Karl and Augustus are in my
keeping--by the Archduke's own wish. You have spent your life studying
human nature, and you know as well as I do that half the world would
believe my story if I said I was the Emperor's nephew. In the uneasy and
unstable condition of your absurd empire I should be hailed as a
diversion, and then--events, events!"

Count von Stroebel listened with narrowing eyes, and his lips moved in an
effort to find words with which to break in upon this impious
declaration. When Armitage ceased speaking the old man sank back and
glared at him.

"Karl did his work well. You are quite mad. You will do well to go back
to America before the police discover you."

Armitage rose and his manner changed abruptly.

"I do not mean to trouble or annoy you. Please pardon me! Let us be
friends, if we can be nothing more."

"It is too la