And then his breath failed him, and, as he lifted his little, eager, pale face to the young king’s, great tears were falling down his cheeks.
Now, the king likes all poetic and uncommon things, and there was that in the child’s face which pleased and touched him. He motioned to his gentlemen to leave the little boy alone.
“What is your name?” he asked him.
“I am August Strehla. My father is Karl Strehla. We live in Hall, in the Innthal; and Hirschvogel has been ours so long,—so long!”
His lips quivered with a broken sob.
“And have you truly travelled inside this stove all the way from Tyrol?”
“Yes,” said August; “no one thought to look inside till you did.”
The king laughed; then another view of the matter occurred to him.
“Who bought the stove of your father?” he inquired.
“Traders of Munich,” said August, who did not know that he ought not to have spoken to the king as to a simple citizen, and whose little brain was whirling and spinning dizzily round its one central idea.