They came out on to the wall just above the band of Pollyooly's subjects, hot and excited in a game of rounders.
The quick eye of the grand duke at once espied Prince Adalbert running to field a ball.
"Ach, he is zlimmer!" he said in a tone of satisfaction.
"Zlimmer? He is zlimmer, your Highness. Id iz zat leedle she-devil-child. She nevare—nod nevare—leds 'im be steel. All ze day she makes 'im roosh and roosh. He haf nevare no breath in hees loongs—nod nevare!"
"Ach, zo?" said the grand duke calmly. "He is rooning mooch faster zan he vas could."
"Id's zat leedle she-devil-child! She make 'im roon and roon all ze day!" cried the baron.
"Ach, zo?" said the grand duke. "Alzo he is peenk—guite peenk."
The satisfaction in his tone had increased. He could hardly be called a fond parent, in the matter of Adalbert; he might more truly be said to bear with him. Indeed he had never been able to explain the boy to his satisfaction. There was perhaps a slight physical resemblance between Adalbert and his parents; but whereas he knew himself to be one of the astutest princes in the German Empire and his wife to be an uncommonly clear-witted woman, no father's partiality hid from him the fact that Adalbert was obtuse. He was inclined to accept sadly the theory of Professor Muller, professor of anatomy and physiology at the University of Lippe-Schweidnitz, and court physician, that Adalbert cast back to his great-grandfather Franz, who had been known to his irreverent subjects as "The Dolt."
He gazed at the perspiring and excited band for a minute in silence. Then he said:
"Wheech is ze leedle she-devil-child?"