Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1916 — THE PRINCE OF GRAUSTARK [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE PRINCE OF GRAUSTARK

By GEORGE BARR M’CUTCHEON

Author of “Graustark,” “Beverly of Graustark,” Etc. Copyright, 1914, by Dodd, Mead and Company

SYNOPSIS Mr. Blithers, multimillionaire, diacmwra with his wife the possibilities of marrying off his daughter, Maud Applegate, to the Prince of Grau stark, who is visiting Mr. and Mrs. Truxton King in America in an* ticipation of getting some one to take up tlsp loan Russia holds. A Mr. Scoville is attentive to Maud. CHAPTER 11. Mr. Slithers Goes Visiting. A YEAR of grace remained. The minister es finance had long since recovered from the delusion that it would be easy to borrow from either England or Fiance to pay the Russians, there be-, Ing small prospect of a renewal by the czar, even for a short period at a higher rate of Interest The great nations •of Europe made it plain to the little principality that they would not put a finger in Russia’s pie at this stage of the game. Russia was ready to go to •war with her great neighbor. Austria. Diplomacy—caution, if you will- made ft imperative that other nations should sit tight and look to their own knitting, so to say. Not one could afford to be charged with befriending even in a roundabout way either of the angry grumblers. It was only too well known in diplomatic circles that Russia coveted the railroads of Graustark as a means of throwing troops into a remote and al- ! most impregnable portion of Austria.! If the debt were paid promptly it would be injpossible. according to interna-' tional law, for the great White Bear to take over these roads and at least a portion of the western border of the principality. Obviously, Austria would be benefited by the prompt lifting of the debt, but her own relations with Russia were so strained that an offer to come to the rescue of Graustark would be taken at once as an open affront and vigorously resented Her hands were tied. I The northern and western parts of Graustark were rich with productive mines. The government had built rail-' roads throughout these sections so that the yield of coal and copper might be

given an outlet to the world at largs. In making the loan Russia had demanded these prosperous sections as security for the vast sum advanced, and Graustark in an evil hour had submitted, little suspecting the trick that Dame Nature was to play in the end. Private banking institutions in Eu-' rope refused to make loans under the rather exasperating circumstances, pre-! ferring to take no chances. Money was not cheap in these bitter days, neither! in Europe nor America. Caution was the watchword. A vast European war was not improbable, despite the sincere efforts on the part of the various nations to keep out of the controversy. Nor was Mr. Blithers far from right in his shrewd surmise that Prince Robin and bis agents were not without hope in coming to America at this particular time. Graustark had laid by barely half the amount required to lift the debt to Russia. It was not beyond the bounds of reason to expect her prince to secure the remaining 15,000,000 through private sources in New York city. Six weeks prior to his arrival in New York the young prince landed in San Francisco. He had come by way

of the orient accompanied by the chief of staff of the Graustark army. Count Qulnnox. hereditary watchdog to the royal family, and a young lieutenant of the guard. Boske Dank. Two men were they who would have given a thousand lives in the service of their prince. No less loyal was the body servant who looked after the personal wants of the eager young traveler, an Englishman of the name of Hobbs. A very poor valet was he. but an exceptionally capable person when it came to the checking pf luggage and the divining of railway timetables. He had been a guide for a tourist agency. It was quite impossible to miss a train that Hobbs suspected of being the right one.

' Prince Robin came unheralded and traversed the breadth of the continent without attracting more than the atten tion that is bestowed upon good looking young men. Like his mother, nearly a quarter of a century before, he traveled incognito. But where she had used the somewhat emphatic name of Guggehslocker he was. known to the hotel regis <as“M r. R. Schmidt aad ser vant.”

There was romance in the eager young soul of Prince Robin. He reveled in the love story of his parents. The l>eautiful Princess Yetive first saw Grenfell Lorry in an express train going eastward from Denver. Their wonderful romance was born, so to ipeak. in a Pullman compartment car. and it thrived so splendidly that It almost upset a dynasty, for never—in all of nine centuries—had a ruler of Graustark stooped to marriage with a commoner. And so when the farsighted minis- | try and bouse of nobles in Graustark set about to select a wife for their young ruler they made overtures to the Prince of Dawsbergen, whose domain adjoined Graustark on the south. The Crown Princess of Dawsbergen, then but fifteen, was the unanimous choice of the amiable matchmakers in secret conclave. This was when Robin was seventeen and just over being fatuously in love with his middle aged instructress in French. „ |

The Prince of Dawsbergen dispatched an embassy of noblemen to assure his neighbor that the match would be highly acceptable to him and that in proper season the betrothal might be announced. But alack! both courts overlooked the fact that there was independent American blood in the two young people. Neither the Prince of Graustark nor the Crown Princess of Dawsbergen—whose mother was a Miss Beverly Calhoun of Virginia—was disposed to’listen to the voice of expediency: in fact, at a safe distance of three or four hundred miles the youngsters figuratively turned up their noses at each other and frankly confessed that they hated each other and wouldn’t be bullied into getting married, no matter what anybody said, or something of the sort - ) “S’i»ose I’m going to say I’ll marry a girl I've never seen?” demanded sev-euteen-year-old Robin, full of wrath. “Not 1. my lords. I'm going to look about a bit, if you don’t mind. The world is full of girls. I'll many the , one 1 happen to want or I’ll not marry . at all.” “But, highness,” they protested, “you must listen to reason. There must be a successor to the throne of Graustark. You would not have the name die with you. The young princess is”— “Is fifteen, you say,” he interrupted loftily. “Come around in ten years and we’ll talk it over again. But I'm not going to pledge myself to marry a child in short frocks, name or no name. Is she pretty?” The lords did not know. They bad not seen the young lady. . | “If she Is pretty you'd be sure to know it, my lords, so we'll assume she isn't. 1 saw her when she was three years old. and she certainly was a fright when she cried, and, my lords, she cried all the time. No, I’ll not marry her. Be good enough to say to the Prince of Dawsbergen that I’m very' much obliged to him. but it's quite out of the question.” And the fifteen-year-old crown princess, 400 miles away, coolly informed her doting parents that she was tired of being a princess anyway and very ? much preferred marrying some one who lived in a cottage. In fine, she stamped her little foot and said she'd jump into the river before she'd marry the Prince of Graustark. “But he's a very handsome, adorable boy.” began her mother. “And half American, just as you are. my child,” put in her father encouragingly. “Nothing could be more suitable tban”— ”1 don't intend to marry anybody until I’m thirty at least, so that ends it. daddy—l mean your poor old high ness.” -

"Naturally we do not expect you to be married before you are out of •short frocks, my dean” said Prince Dantan stiffly. "But a betrothal is quite another thing. It is customary to arrange these marriages years before”— "Is Prince Robin in love with me?” "I—ahem—that’s a J very silly question. He hasn’t seen you since you were a baby. But he will be in love with you. never fear.” "He may be in love with some one else, for all we know, so where do I come in?” •< “Come in?” gasped her father. “She’s part American, dear,” explained the mother with her prettiest smile. “Besides,” said the crown princess, with finality. 'Tin not even going to be engaged to a man I’ve never seen. And if you insist. I’ll run away as sure as anything.” And so the matter rested. Five years have passed since the Initial overtures were made by the two courts, and although several sly attempts were made to bring the young people to a proper understanding of their case they

aroused nothing more than scornful laughter on the part of the principals. And no one saw the portentous shadow cast by the slim daughter of William W. Blithers, for the simple reason that neither Graustark nor Dawsbergen knew that it existed. They lived in serene ignorance of the fact that God, while he was about It., put Maud Applegate Blithers into the world on precisely the same day that the crown princess of Dawsbergen first saw the of day. . "

On the Fwenty-second anniversary of his birth Prince Robin fared forth In quest of love and romance, not with out hope of adventure, for he was a valorous chap with the heritage of warriors in his veins. Said be to himself in dreamy contemplation of the long journey ahead of him: “1 will traverse the great highways that my mother trod, and I will look for the Golden Girl sitting by the wayside. She must be there, and though it is a wide world. I am young and my eyes are sharp. 1 will find her sitting at thp roadside eager for me to come, hot housed in a gloomy castle surrounded by the spooks of a hundred ancestors. They who live in castles wed to hate, ahd they who wed at the roadside live to love. Fortune attend me! If love lies at the roadside waiting do not let me pass it by. All the princesses are not inside the castles. Some sit outride the gates and laugh with glee, for Tov® Is their companion. So away I go, la, la! looking for the princes with the happy heart and the smiling lips! It is a wide world, but my eyes are sharp. I shall find my princess.” But, alas, for his fine young dream, he found no golden girl at the roadside nor anything that suggested romance. There were happy hearts and smiling lips, and all for him, it would appear, but he passed them by, for his eyea were sharp and his wits awake. And so at last he came to Gotham, his heart as free as the air he breathed, confessing that his quest had been in vain. History failed to repeat itself. His mother’s romance would stand alone and shine without a flicker to the end of time. There could be no counterpart

“Well, I had the fun of looking,” he philosophized (to himself, for no man knew of his secret project) and grinned -with a sort of amused tolerance for the sentimental side of his nature. “I’m a silly ass to have even dreamed of finding her as I passed along, and If I had found her what the deuce could I have done about it anyway? This isn’t the day for medieval lady snatching. I dare say I’m just as well off for not having found her. I still have the zest for hunting farther, and there's a lot In that.” Then aloud, “Hobbs, are we on time?” “We are, sir,” said Hobbs without even glancing at his watch. The train was passing One Hundred and Twen-ty-fifth street. “To the minute, sir. We will be in in ten minutes if nothing happens. Mr. King will be at the station to meet you, sir. Any orders, sir?”

“Yes; pinch me, Hobbs.” “Pinch your highness!’’ in amazement, “My word, sir, wot”— “I just want to be sure that the dream is over, Hobbs. Never mind. You needn't pinch me. I’m awake,” and to prove it he stretched his fine young body in the ecstasy of realization.

That night he slept soundly In the Catskills. Toward the end of his first week at Red Roof, the summer home of the Truxton Kings, the prince might have been found on the broad lawn late one afternoon playing tennis with his hostess, the lovely and vivacious “Aunt Loraine.” To him Mrs. King would always be “Aunt Loraine,” even as he would never be anything but Bobby to her. She was several years under forty and as light and active as a young girl. Her smooth cheek glowed with the happiness and thrill of the sport, and he was hard put to hold his own against her, even though she insisted that he play his level best. * Truxton King, stalwart and lazy, lounged on the turf, umpiring the game, attended by two pretty young girls, a lieutenant in flannels and the ceremonious Count Quinnox, iron gray and gaunt faced battleman with the saber scars on his cheek and the bullet wound in his side. “Good work, Rainie!” shouted the umpire as his wife safely placed the ball far out of her opponent’s reach. “Hi!” shouted Robin, turning on him with a scowl. “You’re not supposed to cheer anybody, d’you understand? You’re only’an umpire.” “Outburst of excitement, kid,” apologized the umpire complacently. “Couldn’t help tt. Forty thirty. Get busy.” “He called him 'kid,”’ whispered one of the young girls to the other. “Well, I heard the prince call Mr. King 'Truck’ a little while ago,” whispered the other. “Isn’t he good looking?” sighed the first one. They were sisters, very young, and lived in the cottage across the road with their widowed mother. Their existence was quite unknown to Mr. and Mrs. Blithers, although the amiable Maud was rather nice to them. She had once picked them up in her automobile when she encountered them walking to the station. After that she called them by their Christian names and generously asked them to call her Maud. It might appear from this that Maud suffered somewhat from loneliness in the great house on the hill. The Welton girls had known Robin a scant three-quar-ters of an hour and were deeply tn love with him. Fannie was eighteen and Nellie but little more than sixteen. He was their first prince. “\Yhee.-ee!” shrilled. Mrs, King, going

madly after a return that her opponent had lobbed over the net. She missed. “Deuce,” said her husband laconically. A servant was crossing the lawn with a tray of Iced drinks. As he neared the recumbent group he paused irresolutely and allowed his gaze to shift toward the road below. Then he came on. and as he drew alongside the interested umpire he leaned over and spoke in a low tone of voice. “What?” demanded King, squinting. "Just come tn the gate, sir.” said the footman. King shot a glance over his shoiilder and then sat up In astonishment. “Good Lord! Blithers! What the deuce can he be doing here? I say, Loraine! Hi!” “Vantage in.” cried his pretty wife, dashing a stray lock from her eyes. Mr. King’s astonishment was genuine. It might better have been pronounced bewilderment. Mr. 'Blithers was paying his first visit to Red Roof. Up to this minute it is doubtful if he ever had accorded It so much as a glance of Interest tn passing. He bowed to King occasionally at the station. but that was all. But now his manner was exceedingly friendly as he advanced upon the group. One might have been pardoned for believing him to be a most Intimate friend of the family and given to constantly dropping in at any and all hours of the day. (To be continued.)

"I’ll marry the one I happen to want or I’ll not marry at all.”