esides a
dozen of warm stockings knit by the fair hands of ----"

"Spare me!" groaned Friedrich, in mock indignation. "Am I a pet
preacher, that I should be smothered in female absurdities? I have
hair that would stuff a sofa, comforters that would protect a regiment
in Siberia, slippers, stockings ----. I shall sell them, I shall burn
them. I would send them back, but the ladies send nothing but their
Christian names, and to identify Luise, and Gretchen, and Catherine,
and Bettina, is beyond my powers. No!"

When they had ceased laughing the Duke continued his catechism.

"Was it when the great poet G---- (your only rival) paid that handsome
compliment to your verses on ----"

"No!" interrupted the poet. "A thousand times no! The great poet
praised the verses you allude to simply to cover his depreciation of
my 'Captive Queen,' which is among my best efforts, but too much in
his own style. How Germany can worship his bombastic ---- but that's
nothing! No."

"Was it when you passed accidentally through the streets of Dresden,
and the crowd discovered you, and carried you to the hotel on its
shoulders?"

The momentary frown passed from Friedrich's face, and he laughed
again.

"And when the men who carried me twisted my leg so that I couldn't
walk for a fortnight, to say nothing of the headache I endured from
bowing to the populace like a Chinese mandarin? No!"

"Is it any triumph you have enjoyed in any other country in Europe?"

"No!"

"My dear genius, I can guess no more; what, in the name of Fortune,
was this happy occasion--this life triumph?"

"It is a long story, your highness, and entertaining to no one but
myself."

"You do me injustice," said the Duke. "A long story from you is too
good to be lost. Sit down, and favour me."

A patron's wishes are not to be neglected; and somewhat unwillingly
the poet at last sat down, and told the story of his Ballad and of St.
Nicholas's Day, as it has been told here. The fountain of tears is
drier in middle age than in childhood, but he was not unmoved as he
concluded.

"Every circumstance of that evening," he said, "is as fresh in my
remembrance now as it was then, and will be till I die. It is a joy, a
triumph, and a satisfaction that will never fade. The words that
roused me from despair, that promised knowledge to my ignorance and
fame to my humble condition, have power now to make my heart beat, and
to bring hopeful tears into eyes that should have dri