HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.
(The German CROWN PRINCE and Ex-King CONSTANTINE.)
Crown Prince. My poor old TINO, you are certainly not looking yourself. Have a drink?
Tino. No, thank you. I really don't feel up to it.
C. P. But that's the moment of all others when you ought to take one. It's good stuff too—bubbly wine out of the cellar of one of my French châteaux. Come, I'll pour you out a glass.
Tino. Well, if I must I must (drinks). Yes, there's no fault to be found with it.
C. P. You're looking better already. Now you can tell me all about it.
Tino (bitterly). Oh, there's not much to tell, except that I was lured on by the promise of help, and when the crisis came there was no help, and so I had to go.
C. P. (humming an air).
And so, and so
He had, he had to go.
Tino. I beg your pardon.
C. P. Sorry, old man, but the words fitted into the tune so nicely I really couldn't resist trying it. Fire ahead.
Tino. I said, I think, that I was promised help.
C. P. Yes, you said that all right.
Tino. And I added that there was no help when the trouble came.
C. P. You said "crisis," not "trouble," but we won't insist on a trifle like that. Who was the rascal who broke his promise and refused to help you?
Tino. You know well enough that it was your most gracious father.
C.P. What! The ALL-HIGHEST! The INMOSTLY BELOVED! The BEYOND-ALL-POWERFUL! Was it really he? And you believed him, did you? What a cunning old fox it is, to be sure.
Tino. You permit yourself to speak very lightly of the AUGUST ONE, who also happens to be your father.
C. P. To tell you the truth, I don't take him as seriously as he takes himself. Nobody could.
Tino. After what has happened I certainly shall not again. It's entirely owing to him that I've lost my kingdom and that the hateful VENIZELOS is back in Athens and that ALEXANDER is seated on my throne. If your beloved father had only left me alone I should have worried through all right.
C. P. I always tell him he tries to do too much, but he's so infatuated with being an Emperor that there's no holding him. You know he's absolutely convinced that he and the Almighty are on special terms of partnership.
Tino. I've done a bit myself in that line and I know it doesn't pay.
C. P. I daresay I shall do it when my time comes.
Tino. If it ever comes.
C. P. If it depended on me alone things would go all right. I'm told the people like me, and even the Socialists swear by me.
Tino. How can you believe such nonsense? I tried to act on that principle and here I am. And poor Russian NICKIE has had an even worse fall—all through believing he had the people on his side.
C. P. Well, but I know they're all fond of me; but my All-Highest One may get knocked out before I get my chance, and may carry me down with him.
Tino. Well, we must try to bear up, even if he should go the way NICKIE has gone. In the meantime the War doesn't look particularly promising, does it?
C. P. It certainly doesn't; and the Americans will be at our throats directly. Do you know, I never thought very much of HINDENBURG.
Tino. I suppose you know someone who is younger and could do it much better.
