He smiled again, to himself. It touched his ironic sense of humor that he, who had devoted his life to maintaining that all men are not free and equal, when on that very day that same doctrine of liberty was undermining his throne—that he should be discussing it with the small heir to that throne.
“Yes, sir,” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto. He hoped it was not very long.
“Otto,” said the King suddenly, “do you ever look at your father’s picture?”
“Not always.”
“You might—look at it now and then. I’d like you to do it.”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER XXV. THE GATE OF THE MOON
A curious friendship had sprung up between old Adelbert and Bobby Thorpe. In off hours, after school, the boy hung about the ticket-taker’s booth, swept now to a wonderful cleanliness and adorned within with pictures cut from the illustrated papers. The small charcoal fire was Bobby’s particular care. He fed and watched it, and having heard of the baleful effects of charcoal fumes, insisted on more fresh air than old Adelbert had ever breathed before.
“You see,” Bobby would say earnestly, as he brushed away at the floor beneath the burner, “you don’t know that you are being asphyxiated. You just feel drowsy, and then, poof!—you’re dead.”