"Good evening, Monsieur Caldoni, so you are starting soon?"
"Yes, Monsieur Vicart, it's customary and also my duty, every time a sovereign, a crowned head, takes the train..."
"You stick as close to him as possible until he has reached the frontier. Well, I'm not sorry to see you here," continued Vicart, "for now my job is over."
"And mine just beginning, worse luck."
"Oh! you have only a few hours of it; you travel luxuriously in a special train..."
"One gets tired of that pretty soon. Last week I took the Dowager Queen of Italy to Menton; then jumped to the Spanish frontier to pick up the King of Spain; now it's the King of Hesse-Weimar—to-morrow, who knows?"
The station was decorated gaily in honor of the departing Frederick-Christian. In a private room, a number of the guests, especially invited, were waiting the arrival of the Sovereign.
While M. Vicart, in company with a special agent, made a rapid examination of the station and satisfied himself that all preparations had been thoroughly carried out, M. Caldoni was talking to the station-master.
"The King's special train is to start exactly at 10.17, that is to say, it will follow, at an interval of 10 minutes number 322."
"The 322 is the Cologne express, isn't it?" inquired M. Caldoni.