"Damnation! But who?"
"No one knows, your Majesty, but the fellow received a most unmerciful thrashing, and will certainly write no more articles of a similar kind; he had to be carried home, they told me."
"I must know who did it, so that I can thank him, although I envy him the doing of it; but you and I, Landsberg, are not wanted, we had better get back to Karena."
"Yes, your Majesty."
He looked as though he did not agree with me, and it flashed across me that he had hoped to catch a glimpse of his betrothed, but I was in no mood to be unselfish; since I could not do what I had come to do, and since I could not think of any way to see the Princess, I wished to get away from Sonale as quickly as possible. I looked at him, he stared straight in front, without moving a muscle of his face, bearing his disappointment like the very gallant gentleman he was, and incidentally setting an example to me, his King.
"I shall leave here at one o'clock," I said. "Until then, you had better do some shopping, and obtain what no other city in the world can give you at the present time. Go, don't waste time, and try to be back punctually; tell them to send me up the papers."
"I thank your Majesty most gratefully."
His face was all smiles, and I felt pleased that some one should benefit by our trip.
I tried very hard to make myself believe that I was pleased that the fellow had been punished, but I could not get over the desire I had had to send my fist smashing into his face. However, I realised that the chivalry of some man had taken the matter out of my hands, and that I must wait patiently, reading the newspapers, until that lucky young devil of a Guardsman had finished making love and returned to his King.
Having read the papers, I set about for some method of amusing, or rather boring myself, and commenced to whistle somewhat mournfully all the airs I could recollect; when I hit upon one more than usually lugubrious, I repeated it several times, much to my satisfaction. I remember that the English song, entitled "Three fishers went sailing out into the west," was the one which I finally selected as the most suitable to fit my mood, and gloried in making it as miserable as possible.