“I understood the speech perfectly well, but my awe was too great to allow me to say, ‘Your majesty will have the grace to allow me something.’ But as I was so simple, and asked for nothing, he did not offer any thing. And so he turned away. But he had gone scarcely six or eight steps when he looked around and gave me a sign to walk by his side.”
The king then questioned him very closely respecting the place where he had studied, during what years, under what teachers, and to what branches he had devoted special attention. While thus conversing the clock struck twelve. This was the dinner-hour of his majesty. “Now I must go,” said the king. “They wait for their soup.”
Linsenbarth, thus left alone, sauntered from the garden back to the esplanade. There he stood quite bewildered. He had walked that day twenty miles beneath a July sun and over the burning sands. He had eaten nothing. He had not a farthing in his pocket.
“In this tremor of my heart,” writes Linsenbarth, “there came a valet out of the palace and asked, ‘Where is the man that was with my king in the garden?’ I answered, ‘Here.’ He led me into the palace to a large room, where pages, lackeys, and soldier valets were about. My valet took me to a little table excellently furnished with soup, beef; likewise carp, dressed with garden salad; likewise game, with cucumber salad; bread, knife, fork, plate, spoon were all there. My valet set me a chair, and said,
“‘This that is on the table the king has ordered to be served for you. You are to eat your fill and mind nobody. I am to serve.’
“I was greatly astonished, and knew not what to do; least of all could it come into my head that the king’s valet who waited on his majesty should wait on me. I pressed him to sit by me; but, as he refused, I did as bidden.
“The valet took the beef from the table and set it on the charcoal dish until wanted. He did the like with the fish and roast game, and poured me out wine and beer. I ate and drank till I had abundantly enough. Dessert, confectionery, what I could. A plate of big black cherries and a plateful of pears my waiting-man wrapped in paper, and stuffed them into my pockets to be a refreshment on the way home. And so I rose from the royal table, and thanked God and the king in my heart that I had so gloriously dined. At that moment a secretary came, brought me a sealed order for the custom-house at Berlin, with my certificates and the pass; told down on the table five tail-ducats and a gold Friedrich under them, saying, ‘The king sent me this to take me home to Berlin.’[93]
“And if the hussar took me into the palace, it was now the secretary took me out again. And there, yoked with six horses, stood a royal wagon, which, having led me to, the secretary said, ‘You people, the king has given order that you are to take this stranger to Berlin, and you are to accept no drink-money from him.’ I again testified my thankfulness for the royal kindness, took my place, and rolled away.
“On reaching Berlin I went at once to the custom-house, and handed them my royal order. The head man opened the seal. In reading, he changed color—went from pale to red; said nothing, and gave it to the second man to read. The second put on his spectacles, read, and gave it to the third. However, the head man rallied himself at last. I was to come forward and be so good as to write a receipt that I had received for my four hundred thalers, all in batzen, the same sum in Brandenburg coin, ready down, without the least deduction. My cash was at once accurately paid, and thereupon the steward was ordered to go with me to the ‘White Swan,’ and pay what I owed there, whatever my score was. That was what the king had meant when he said ‘you shall have your money back, and interest too.’”
This good old man died in Berlin on the 24th of August, 1777, eighty-eight years of age.