agnifying-glass," said the King. "The face and the raised arm
are behind the palisade to the right."

"I can't see them," said Max.

"Very small," said the King; "a man with a dark beard."

Max continued to look without result. "I can't find it," he said.

"Well, look at the figures and lettering on the shard; you can see
those."

"No," said Max, "I can't."

The King came impatiently across and took them off him. Then, as he
examined them, he saw that the shard and the four films had been
changed.

He had his souvenir; but the incriminating evidence was gone.

CHAPTER XXII

A MAN OF BUSINESS

I

While these events of political moment were going on, Prince Hans Fritz
Otto of Schnapps-Wasser had been busy planting himself in the good
graces of the Princess Charlotte. They rode, they skated, they lunched,
they played billiards together; and so easy did their relations to each
other become that the Queen ceased to have any anxiety as to the future,
and left the entire conduct of the affair to Providence.

Charlotte all her life had been quick and impulsive in her decisions;
her hatreds and her affections had always been precipitately bestowed,
and while her conduct was seldom reasonable, her instincts were
generally right. So now--when a most crucial question was coming to her
for decision--for she no longer needed to be informed of the Prince's
mind in the matter--she did not allow its serious character to weigh
upon her spirits or make her less ready and spontaneous in the bestowal
of her liking. On the contrary, if anything, it hastened her verdict of
approval. "I do believe that I am going to fall in love with him!" she
said to herself after an acquaintance of only twenty-four hours; and
having so determined, she set forth with all speed to study
"philosophically," as she phrased it, this huge healthy natural specimen
which fortune had thrown in her way. "For if I don't take a
philosophical view of him now," she said to herself, "I shall never be
able to do it afterwards."

The effort to do so rather amused her; she was not in love with him but
she liked him more than a little. She had not yet, however, put him to
the test by revealing the awful fact that she had been in prison as a
common criminal; and before doing so (a little nervous as to the result)
she took such opportunity of survey as was left to her, studied him up
and down, noticed his ways, demeanor, habits, and wondered to hersel