sting state.
"Thou hast lodged me to perfection, good Wilhelmina. Here I find my
wooden stools, tubs to wash in; all things as if I were at Potsdam:--a
good girl; and thou must take care of thyself, my child (MEIN KIND)."

At dinner, his Majesty, dreading no ill, but intent only on the
practical, got into a quiet, but to me most dreadful, lecture to the old
Margraf (my Father-in-law) upon debt and money and arrears: How he, the
Margraf, was cheated at every turn, and led about by the nose, and
kept weltering in debt: how he should let the young Margraf go into the
Offices, to supervise, and withal to learn tax-matters and economics
betimes. How he (Friedrich Wilhelm) would send him a fellow from Berlin
who understood such things, and would drill his scoundrels for him!
To which the old Margraf, somewhat flushed in the face, made some
embarrassed assent, knowing it in fact to be true; and accepted the
Berlin man:--but he made me (his poor Daughter-in-law) smart for
it afterwards: "Not quite dead YET, Madam; you will have to wait a
little!"--and other foolish speech; which required to be tempered down
again by a judicious female mind.

Grumkow himself was pleasant on this occasion; told us of Kladrup, the
Prag etiquettes; and how he was like to go mad seeing his Majesty so
humiliate himself. Fraulein Grumkow, a niece of his, belonging to the
Austrian court, who is over here with the rest, a satirical intriguing
baggage, she, I privately perceive, has made a conquest of my foolish
Brother-in-law, the Anspach Margraf here;--and there will be jealousies,
and a cat-and-dog life over yonder, worse than ever! Tush, why should
we talk?--These are the phenomena at Baireuth; Husband and Father-in-law
having quitted their boar-hunt and hurried home.

After three days, Friedrich Wilhelm rolled away again; lodged, once
more, at Meuselwitz, with abstruse Seckendorf, and his good old Wife,
who do the hospitalities well when they must, in spite of the single
candle once visible. On the morrow after which, 14th August, 1732,
his Majesty is off again, "at four in the morning," towards Leipzig,
intending to be home that night, though it is a long drive. At Leipzig,
not to waste time, he declines entering the Town; positively will not,
though the cannon-salvos are booming all round;--"breakfasts in the
suburbs, with a certain Horse-dealer (ROSS-HANDLER) now deceased:" a
respectable Centaur, capable, no doubt, of bargaining a little about