"Arthur," I said, "must you then always be in trouble and distress? Could it not be otherwise if you chose? A man like you, with so much talent, so much tact, such engaging manners----"
"And such a father!" cried Arthur, with a laugh that went to my heart. "Do you suppose that one can do anything with such a father, who compromises me every moment--every moment places me in the pillory, or at least keeps me in perpetual fear that he will do it?"
"I would never speak thus of my father, Arthur," I said.
"I suppose not," he answered. "You never had reason to: if I had had such a father as yours I would be a different man. But my father! Here he runs from this man to that, and begs for me a sort of position in our legation at London, and a few weeks later he goes round to the very same men and begs for himself; and the result is that they don't want in the London legation the son of a man whom they have to shut their door upon at home; and if I had not in London made the acquaintance of Prince Prora, who most kindly took an interest in me, I should not know how to pay for my cup of coffee to-morrow morning."
"Arthur," I said, "I believe you need the money more than I do. Suppose you take it back to the prince, for it comes from the prince, as you might as well confess--and say to him from me that I neither need it nor desire it, and request that it may be given to you. As for our little account, that we can settle when you really are in funds."
"You dear old George!" cried Arthur, springing up and seizing my hand. "You are the same dear fellow you always were; I intended it for you, but if you don't need it--" and he hastily clutched up the notes which he had so carefully counted, and thrust them into his breast pocket.
"Cannot the prince open some definite career to you?" I asked.
"The prince!" he replied. "Bah! you remind me of the game the young girls used to play when we were children--Emilie Heckepfennig, Elise Kohl, and whatever their names were--the game of the meal-pile, into which a ring was stuck, and each one of the girls cut away in turn a part of the pile, and then more, and then a little more, until down fell the meal-pile, and the little snub-noses went to rooting in it for the ring. That is the very image of the man: everyday one charming hand or another cuts away a portion of the meal-pile that is called Prince Karl of Prora-Wiek, and before long down the pile will tumble; it leans over now, I can tell you," and Arthur buttoned up his overcoat, and drew on again his right glove, which he had pulled off to count the money.
"I should be sorry to know that, if I were, as you are, a friend of the young man."
"Friend?" said he, lighting a cigar at the lamp. "Friend? pah! I am as little his friend as he is mine. He needs me, because--well, he needs me, and I need him; and whoever first ceases to need the other will give him a friendly kick; only I imagine I shall need him longer than he me, or than his lungs will hold out, which I suspect are more than half gone already."