“Royalties? What? Dear me, here’s rapid promotion! I am royal now! And a moment ago I was a little penny-a-liner in London.”
“L’un n’empêche pas l’autre. Have you never heard the story of the Invisible Prince?” she asked.
“I adore irrelevancy,” said he. “I seem to have read something about an invisible prince, when I was young. A fairy tale, wasn’t it?”
“The irrelevancy is only apparent. The story I mean is a story of real life. Have you ever heard of the Duke of Zeln?”
“Zeln? Zeln?” he repeated, reflectively. “No, I don’t think so.”
She clapped her hands. “Really, you do it admirably. If I weren’t perfectly sure of my facts, I believe I should be taken in. Zeln, as any history would tell you, as any old atlas would show you, was a little independent duchy in the centre of Germany.”
“Poor dear thing! Like Jonah in the centre of the whale,” he murmured, sympathetically.
“Hush. Don’t interrupt. Zeln was a little independent German duchy, and the Duke of Zeln was its sovereign. After the war with France it was absorbed by Prussia. But the ducal family still rank as royal highnesses. Of course, you’ve heard of the Leczinskis?”
“Lecz———-what?” said he.
“Leczinski,” she repeated.