"It is not necessary at all, Your Highness," Stadinger assured him, benevolently; "the most illustrious aunt already knows all about it."
"Knows all about what? Have you told her anything?"
"At your service. The day before yesterday, when I was at Furstenstein, Her Highness had just returned from a drive and graciously beckoned me to approach and asked me--Her Highness likes to do that----"
"Yes, Heaven knows!" groaned the young Prince, who already scented mischief. "And what did you answer?"
"'Your Highness may rest easy,' I said; 'we have only monkeys and parrots of the live animals in the castle. Serpents have never been there. A large sea serpent, though, was to have arrived, but he died on the voyage, and the elephants tore themselves lose at the embarking and ran back to the palm forests--at least, so His Highness says. To be sure, we have two tigers, but they are stuffed; and of the lions, there is only the skin, which lies in the armory. Therefore Your Highness may see that the beasts cannot break loose and do harm.'"
"Oh, but you have fixed things now with your chattering!" cried Egon, exasperated. "And the Princess, what did she say?"
"Her Highness only smiled and inquired what kind of female servants we had at Rodeck, and if the girls of this vicinity were among them; but I said then"--here Stadinger drew himself up consciously--"'The servants in service at the castle I have hired. They are all industrious and reliable; I have looked out for that. But His Highness runs when he puts eyes on them, and Herr Rojanow runs still more; and the gentlemen have never gone back into the kitchen since the first time they went there.' After that Her Highness was most gracious and condescended to praise me and dismissed me in the very highest satisfaction."
"And I should like to run you to perdition in the very highest dissatisfaction," the Prince burst forth, wrathfully. "You unlucky old Waldgeist, what have you been doing again?"
The old man, who apparently thought that he had done his part extremely well, looked at his master in perplexity.
"But I have only said the truth, Your Highness."