please me? [_Aloud_.] A nice little country, that Baireuth of yours.
Soil somewhat stony, though!--doesn't yield your father much revenue, I
dare say!

PRINCE.

We're learning to improve the soil. [_Aside_.] These geographical
prejudices!

KING.

Trying to improve it by the pleasure palaces your father is building?
What's got into the man? Puts up one gimcrack after another, as if he
were Louis Quatorze--and runs his country into debt meanwhile. About how
much debt does your country carry?

PRINCE (_aside_).

I don't know that myself. [_Aloud, saucily_.] Ten millions.

KING.

Ten millions?

PRINCE.

More or less.

KING.

Good heavens! Who is to pay that debt eventually? And with such a state
of things in the exchequer you're traveling about Europe, taking money
out of the country?

PRINCE.

I'm completing my education, sire.

KING.

In Versailles? In Rheinsburg? Well, never mind, we've had enough of
that. [_He whistles the_ _first bars of the Dessauer March_.] Tell me,
you've taken part in those heathenish performances--at my son's Court, I
mean?

PRINCE.

The part of a confidant, Your Majesty.

KING.

Good! It was about these heathenish performances that I wanted to speak
to you. Prince, they tell me you are a man of taste, a man who is well
acquainted with those godless Greek and Roman doings. As it is in my
mind to celebrate my daughter's wedding with all pomp worthy of my
crown--I want to ask you--to consult with my son--as to how most
gracefully and amusingly to entertain the Courts of Poland, Saxony,
Brunswick and Mecklenburg, who will all be here for an entire week--in a
word, how we can win much honor and glory by this wedding.

PRINCE.

Wedding? The Princess--your daughter's wedding?

KING.

Yes, Prince. My artillery will furnish the salutes, and I will see to the
reviews and parades my self. But it is in the evening that our guests grow
weary in Berlin--they go to sleep in their chairs. Beer drinking and pipe
smoking is not yet to every one's taste. We'll have to swim with the
stream, therefore, and provide suitable amusements--illumination, operas,
allegorical presentations, and such fol-da-rol--all about Prussia and
England.

PRINCE.

England?

KING (_rises_).

Zounds! that ran over my tongue like a hare hurrying across
the highway. H'm--I mean a sort of spectacle--oh, say
unicorn--eagle--eagle--unicorn--leopard--intermingled--Prussia and
England--and it must be