t know whom to go to
for it. I thought of your family when I was passing through Berlin.
'They are almost relations,' I said to myself,' so I'll begin with them;
perhaps we may get on with each other, I with them and they with me, if
they are kind people;' and I have heard that you are very kind people!"

"Oh, thank you, thank you, I'm sure," replied the general, considerably
taken aback. "May I ask where you have taken up your quarters?"

"Nowhere, as yet."

"What, straight from the station to my house? And how about your
luggage?"

"I only had a small bundle, containing linen, with me, nothing more. I
can carry it in my hand, easily. There will be plenty of time to take a
room in some hotel by the evening."

"Oh, then you _do_ intend to take a room?"

"Of course."

"To judge from your words, you came straight to my house with the
intention of staying there."

"That could only have been on your invitation. I confess, however, that
I should not have stayed here even if you had invited me, not for any
particular reason, but because it is--well, contrary to my practice and
nature, somehow."

"Oh, indeed! Then it is perhaps as well that I neither _did_ invite you,
nor _do_ invite you now. Excuse me, prince, but we had better make this
matter clear, once for all. We have just agreed that with regard to our
relationship there is not much to be said, though, of course, it would
have been very delightful to us to feel that such relationship did
actually exist; therefore, perhaps--"

"Therefore, perhaps I had better get up and go away?" said the prince,
laughing merrily as he rose from his place; just as merrily as though
the circumstances were by no means strained or difficult. "And I give
you my word, general, that though I know nothing whatever of manners and
customs of society, and how people live and all that, yet I felt quite
sure that this visit of mine would end exactly as it has ended now.
Oh, well, I suppose it's all right; especially as my letter was not
answered. Well, good-bye, and forgive me for having disturbed you!"

The prince's expression was so good-natured at this moment, and so
entirely free from even a suspicion of unpleasant feeling was the
smile with which he looked at the general as he spoke, that the latter
suddenly paused, and appeared to gaze at his guest from quite a new
point of view, all in an instant.

"Do you know, prince," he said, in quite a different tone, "I do not
know you a