Eszterhazy and the Autogondola-Invention

ESZTERHAZY AND THE AUTOGONDOLA-INVENTION

The mist was thick and white and wet, and from every side came the sounds of trickling waters. Huge grey rocks loomed, showed their lichenous and glistening contours, fell behind to be succeeded by impossibly steep vistas where tufts of grass and twisted trees lured the stranger on, perhaps only (the stranger thought) to betray him into placing his foot on a narrow and slippery footing whence he would at once plunge into a gorge. From right behind him a voice spoke. “You all right, Lieutenant?” said the voice.

Captain Skimmelffenikk of the Royal and Imperial Scythian- Pannonian-Transbalkanian Excise swore a bit. “How can anybody be all right who tries to climb a saturated mountain in riding-boots?” he asked, next.

He could not see the sergeant, but he was certain that the sergeant shrugged. The sergeant said, “You ought to wear rope-soled sandals, like the rest of us. Ain’t that right, Mommed?” The guide was up ahead and equally invisible; he was a Mountain Tartar and a Rural Constable. His reply was a grunt. That is, it sounded like a grunt to the lieutenant, but to the sergeant it had sounded like more. “Hey, that’s a good idea,” said he. “Stop a bit, sir. Now grab hold of that tree and hold it for balance. Now stick your leg backwards as if you was a mule and I was а-shoeing you. Right leg first.” It was a mad-sounding instruction, but no madder than anything else on this tour of duty; and the officer had no one but himself to blame as it was his own misconduct (sleeping off his annual hangover in a public place) which had brought him here as punishment — and lucky he hadn’t been cashiered! — here at the wild border of Hyperborea, one of the Confederated Hegemonies of the Empire. Holding onto the moist bole of a tree, he stuck his right leg backwards. The Royal and Imperial Excise was stern. But it was just. He, Lt. Skimmelffenikk, would sweat and suffer and do his damnedest to do his duty, and eventually he would find himself in some civilized jurisdiction again . .. the Scythian Gothic

Lowlands, perhaps ... or near the capital city of Avar-Ister, sometimes called “The Paris of the Balkans” (not often), in the broad plain of Pannonia.

Twisting his head, he looked to see what was being done. It would not have surprised him to see that his sergeant was actually preparing to hammer in an iron mule-shoe: not quite: the man produced an immense clasp-knife from which he now unclasped a something for which the tax-officer knew no name: somewhat like an awl and somewhat like a file and, on one edge, somewhat like a saw; and with this the man proceeded to score deep scratches in the soles of his superior’s boots. “All right, sir, now the left leg if you please. Aw haw haw! well, better put the right one down first, aw haw haw! Sir.”

But his superior was not looking at his feet. His superior was now looking straight in front of him at a slightly upward angle and at undoubtedly the most horrible sight he had ever seen in his life; he was looking at a face in the thicket and this face was diabolical. One side of it was bleach-white, one side of it was jet-black; it had yellow eyes and horns and a wreathed crown and a stinking beard, and it writhed its lips and it sneered as though the next moment it were about to pronounce some dreadful malediction. The exciseman uttered a thin wail and desperately tried to remember a prayer. At once the sergeant appeared alongside and lunged towards the frightful face, hand outstretched. The creature issued a fearful cry. Vanished. A commotion in the thicket. Only the wreathed crown remained. Or . . . was it really a wreath? Or merely a mass of flowering tendrils, adventitiously created as the creature had blundered through the bushes? A sudden small wind blew upon the wreath and it went tumbling orut of sight. Meanwhile, in the wake of the commotion, there fell at the exciseman’s feet some bits of earth and grass and some other objects, dark and about the size of chick-peas and smoking faintly in the cool misty air. “What was it?” he asked.

“Why sir, it was what the usual trouble here is about, a great big billy such as the Hypoes don’t want to pay no tax upon it if they can help it... there being no tax on a nanny, as you know, sir.”

The lieutenant had some faults in character. But he was able to confess them. “I was scared as Hell. I thought it was the Devil’s face,” he said, now.

And then he said, “Hark. What is that?” The two strained their ears. “Shepherds’ pipes?” the officer asked. But his man shook his head, No. It was far too high for shepherds, he said. Nor did they pipe so.

Unlike most excisemen, who seldom read anything except second- or third-hand copies of the so-called “French papers,” Skimmelffenikk was fond of the occasional issue of a monthly which sometimes carried articles about Natural History; he recalled one now about certain “honey-comb” rocks through which the winds sometimes blew with an effect like an

aeolian harp, and he now mentioned this to his sergeant.

Who said: “Huh. Well, it might have been.” They moved on. Slowly. The rough-cut soles, now both scored, gripped better. “Them Hypoes,” the sergeant was a Slovatchko and held the Hyperboreans in great contempt, “Well, it is said they sometimes do worship the Devil, ho, such fools! Don’t they, Mommed? — Oh, not you o’course for all you’re a Tartar and so a kissing-cousin to a Turk; but they others, don’t they be sometimes risking their souls by worshiping the devil?”

The Mountain Tartar’s reply may have been of a theological nature and then again it may not. Whatever it was he meant by saying it, he said it over and over again. “Watch step. Watch step. Watch step.”

The Monarch was feeling... more to the point, was behaving ... a bit grumpy. The Triune Monarchy had been “protecting” the pashalik of Little Byzantia on behalf of the Turks for a long generation, and now the seemingly interminable negotiations for its annexation to the Empire had taken a great lurch forward. The Sublime Porte had at last agreed to name a sum of money. But in return for this the Sultan was now insisting that the Emperor of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania should henceforth be known as Emperor of only Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania. "What?” demanded Ignats Louis. "What? You mean that henceforth We’ve got to give up calling Ourself ‘Emperor de jure of New Rome and All Byzantium via Marriage by Proxy’? What?” His bulging eyes bulged more and his long nose seemed to grow longer; he gave the ends of his famous bifurcated beard two tremendous tugs. “WHAT?”

“Yes, Sire,” said his Prime Minister. He had been saying so for a long time. Or, at any rate, it seemed a long time to him.

“Won’t do it,” said his Royal and Imperial master. “Won’t think of it. Won’t yield the point. Never. Never.”

They were in the Privy Closet, a vast room jammed with curio cabinets and grand pianos covered with shawls and photographs and daguerro- types and miniatures, plus the single harpsichord on which Madame played for the King-Emperor sixteen minutes twice a day. The Prime Minister was terrified that he might accidentally brush to the floor a sketch on ivory of the infant King of Rome or an early ambrotype of the late Queen of Naples; the Emperor, who could be a sly old fox when he wished, knew this and sometimes chose the Privy Closet whenever he particularly wanted to punish the P.M. by making him be brief. Standing as stiff and motionless as he could, the P.M. said that the point had been repeatedly yielded. “It has been yielded to the Senate of the Republic of Venice, to the Holy Roman Emperor, to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, to the Vatican, and to the King of Greece. Among others.”

Ignats Louis stared stubbornly at an ostrich egg in one of the cabinets. “Sec? Yield, Yield, Yield,” he said. “We shall be little more than a mere petty chieftain if this keeps up. Where has it not yet been yielded?” His first minister informed him that it had not yet been yielded to San Marino, Paraguay, and Mt. Athos. “Besides Turkey, of course.” But this merely made the Old Man grumpier. Mt. Athos! The very last time the Proxy Claim had been invoked was in a dispute over the placing of a faldstool in the Pannonian Phalanastary at Mt. Athos . . . and had the monks been grateful? Not a bit! “Won’t yield. Sorry We yielded to the King of Greece.”

The P.M. silently sighed. Then he played his last card. (A threat of resignation was no card at all: each time he tried to play it the Monarch said, Good.) “I am authorized to inform Your Royal and Imperial Majesty that if Your Royal and Imperial Majesty will yield what is after all a mere pretense, and has been since 1381, the Sultan will bestow upon your Royal and Imperial Majesty the style and title of Despot of Ephesus, it being clearly understood that the title is purely of a despotic, I mean, of a titular character and no longer annually entitles its holder to a caravan of figs, a she-elephant, a eunuch barber-surgeon, or any other of its formal perquisites, including flaying and impalement. Though the Sultan might yield somewhat on the figs. . . .”

Silence. “Despot of Ephesus, hey.”

“Yes, Sire.”

More silence. Then: “The King of Greece won’t like that, will he?” This time the Premier did not conceal his sigh. “No, Sire.”

“Heh heh. Take the wax out of his moustache! Hey? Where’s the ticket?” The P.M. bent down just the slightest bit and indicated the parchment assumpsit which, red seals, ribbons, and all, had been in plain sight atop the writing-board on the Monarch’s knee all the while; the Monarch dipped the short-trimmed quill into the purple ink, and scribbled IL RI (Ignats Louis, Rex, Imperator), called, “Page!” and stood up. The page presented the Premier with a sanding-box, the Premier sanded the signature, the Monarch said There went a thousand years of history down the goo-hole, the Premier said that it was merely 836 years and that the claim had always been dubious and (growing a trifle confused) that Little Byzantia was worth a mass.

“News to me the Turks say mass,” observed the Monarch, pouncing. The P.M. winced: good. Still IL RI felt grumpy over his yielded point and phantom crown, little though he could imagine himself riding his Whitey horse into Yildiz Kiosk and proclaiming, “Stamboul is my wash- pot, over the Sweet Waters of Asia do I cast my shoe!” Well, he was entitled to do something to amuse himself, wasn’t he? “Page,” said he, “get over to that clever young fellow Engli who used to be Equerry here, Dr. Eszterhazy he calls himself now, and tell him that Uncle Iggy will see him tonight, usual time and place; exit the Despot of Ephesus, shejss- drekka/” Out he went.

The Prime Minister looked after him with opened mouth. Then he looked down at the page. The page looked back at him, his rosy face perfectly blank. “ I will see Your Excellency to the door,” said he. He saw His Excellency to the door, closed the door, then turned two cartwheels without disturbing a single bibelot, and then, as sober as before, he went to change from court dress into street clothes.

All was quiet in front of the hotel in the little square at the bottom of the Street of the Defeat of Bonaparte (commonly called Bonaparte Street). It was a rare alley, even, which had no name in Bella, capital of the Triune Monarchy, and this was a rare square, for it had no name at all; the hotel was a private hotel; its owner was one Schweitz, a Swiss, a man for whom the word “discreet” was inadequate. Engelbert Eszterhazy was then engaged in his preliminary studies for the degree of Doctor of Science (a process subsequently completed in Geneva); he had bought the house at Number 33, Turkling Street, and was slowly having it rebuilt according to his plans. For the present, Eszterhazy had rooms in Schweitz’s hotel, and on a certain evening at an hour between early and late Eszterhazy had a few guests. By now it had been a while said of him that he was hopelessly eccentric but damnably clever and so best not crossed — on the sideboard tonight, for example, was a collation catered by Colewort — who was he? — he specialized in serving up snacks after the funerals of the upper sort of cartmen, that’s who he was — on the sideboard tonight was cheese, head-cheese, fruit-cheese, fruit, two sorts of simple cake — if you wanted French kickshaws you could choose to hire a “French” caterer, and Eszterhazy did not choose to — beer, lemonade, and the standard Panno- nian wine called bullblood.

A lull in the talk. Another guest entered. “Ah! Uncle Iggy! Welcome, welcome! You are just in time!” Eszterhazy announced, “Tonight we are perhaps going to summon up some familiar spirits. Perhaps some unfa­miliar ones. Madame Dombrovski has been so very kind as to agree to see if entities not bound to earthly vessels will tonight be moved to employ her as a medium.”

Madame Dombrovski asked that no one be so formal as to call her so. “Pliz, pliz,” she begged, extending her ample arms (she had once been prima coloratura at the Zagreb Opera, where, it is well-known, no thin coloratura has ever appeared); “Pliz. Seemply Katinka Ivanovna. Een You-Rope, eat ease vary furmal, bot I hahv leaved een America, whar ease vary Moderne science hos provide us weeth the planchette, een America we call eat the wee-jee board. Sometimes the spear-eats appear and spik via the planchette. Bot sometimes they peak a human beink. Who con say wheech? Whale, we most see.” Beaming, she began to roll acigarette. Touches of pink petticoat peeped here and there from above and under her frothy blue dress: Katinka Ivanovna was clearly not one of your fanatically neat dressers . . . perhaps that New World informality of which she spoke had accompanied her back to the Old World. Her abundant hair was red, that is, to state it a shade more precisely, henna. Perhaps it was naturally, if unusually, her own hair color; perhaps she had made the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Perhaps not.

Who else was present? Well, there was a rather small and pudgy man to whose clothes and shoes the word glossy could not have been applied, or, at any rate, not without grave risk of terminological inexactitude; perhaps just as well, for their gloss could not but have suffered under the rain of food fragments produced by his rapid eating — shall we say “guzzling”? yes we shall — at the sideboard: and all the while he rolled his prominent eyes around and around at the company. This was Professor Gronk, in whose scientific mind and work Dr. Eszterhazy was vastly interested. Professor Gronk had been well-known at one time for his having courageously piloted eleven balloons out of, and twelve balloons into, Paris during the Siege. Or, vice versa. The Prussians had referred to him, perhaps a bit sourly, as der verfluchte blockaderunner; “blockade- runner” is a word which does not translate easily into Prussian, but they had done the best they could and dropped the hyphen. Their new Colonial Service in Africa was reputed to be busily working on the many, many possibilities of the word hottentotenpoteniaten. Subsequently Pro­fessor Gronk had applied himself to coal-tar derivatives in Montpelier and steam-plows in Silesia, alas sans spectacular success, but his past as ballonist was always with him and his head remained, so to speak, in the clouds.

Also present was a rather thin woman with rather beautiful eyes who was said to have been once the morganatic wife of a Grand Duke; be that as it may, it seemed to be the case that once a week a courier from the Russian Embassy did call upon her and, being shown that she was still in Bella and not, say, St. Petersburg, proffered a bow and an envelope which might very well contain an order upon a bank in Bella, and not, say, a copy of a poem by Pushkin. The lady was called Countess Zulkand was known to be interested in moral, ethical, and spiritual matters of all sorts.

Hovering over the Countess was a very striking figure indeed. This was the Yankee Far-vestern frontier poet, Washington Parthenopius “Pard” Powell, whose dark-red curls reached halfway down his back where they left a sort of Plimsoll line of perfumed bear-grease on the blue-flannel shirt which was his trademark. “The children of nature ma’am for so I denominate my beloved Redskin brethren who made me an adopted offspring under the name of Red Wolf Slayer when I lived amongst them as the one and only White Indian Scout and the husband of the great chief

Rainmaker’s beloved daughter the princess Pretty Deer whose death broke his heart and purt near broke mine too for pretty dear was she to me they have a mighty marvelous appreciation of the great spirit of nature ma’am and whut you might call a extra-ordinary pre-science of things happening afore they really happen oh I recollect many sitch occasions ma’am yessurree.” He wore buckskin trousers and moccasins embroidered with porcupine quills in several colors and he sometimes wore over his blue flannel shirt a vest of rawhide with long fringes and he wore a bowie knife and a broad-brimmed hat very much squashed and he smoked a calumet adorned with feathers and he was immensely popular right just then in Bella. Crowds gathered just to watch him stop and scan the city streets with one hand shielding his eyes and then wet one finger and hold it up to see which way the wind was blowing. Even now, Uncle Iggy was regarding him with fascination.

“Oh Mr. Powell —” the Countess began.

“Just ‘Pard’ ma’am eph yew please fur we ore all pardners in this great trade and commerce which is life ma’am.”

The Countess sighed and said How True! Oh How True! and then asked. “In this life with the Redskins, Pard... was this before or after you were in Honduras with William Walker?”

Pard struck a pose. “It was after ma’am it was oh long after though may I not call you Sis instid of Countess fur ore we not all brothers and sisters in this one great human family I may why shore well Sis as I was sayun Sis well now whut was I sayun ah yes now it come to me well as I declare in my Fifth Epic Poem in Honor of William Walker the last Conkwistadoree:

“Whenas a mere lad in Honduras with the great William Walker Who was a man of action and not much of a talker It is a vile canard to say he intended to extend slavery This is said in order to disparage his very manly bravery He set his calloused hand upon my boyish curly pate ‘Pard,’ said he, ‘love is much richer than hate.’

These words I always recollect when my life is far from ease He spake them unto me as we galloped through the trees. . . .”

Pard stopped at this point and turned away and brushed his eyes with his forearm; the applause died away in a murmuT of sympathy.

The murmur was interrupted by a harsh and argumentative voice, that of Baron Burgenblitz of Blitzenburg, widely known and widely feared and thoroughly disliked as “the worst-tempered backwoods noble in the Empire”: even now he was on one of his too-frequent trips to the Capital to complain about some fancied infringement of feudal privilege, threatening as always that if he obtained no satisfaction he would retire to his castle-fortress and haul up its drawbridge and fire his antique but stillfunctioning cannon upon any interlopers who came within gunshot — and meaning, anybody. “Yes yes, Mr. Wash Pard, we have often been informed that you were in Honduras, and we have often read that you were in Honduras, and you have just now told us that you were in Honduras; and so I have only one little small question to speak to you —”

“Speak without fear, my brother.”

“Wereyou ever in Honduras?”

The company froze. Would Pard’s hand reach for the scalping knife in its sheath at his belt? Would Pard’s hand reach for the tomahawk, set in the other end of the calumet? The company froze. Pard, however, was far from frozen; the look which he looked at Burgenblitz was far from freezing, it was burning hot. “Boss,” he demanded, “say, was Dante ever in Hell?" Burgenblitz’s mouth, already open to sneer, grew round. Then oval. All waited for him to say ... whatever. He said nothing. Nothing at all. At least not for a very long time, and then upon some other subject. It was, later, felt that Washington Parthenopius “Pard” Powell had had the best of that scene.

But to give a complete roster of those present might be felt tedious; it may however be mentioned that among them was a man in later middle age dressed rather in the manner of a riverboat captain trying to disguise himself as a provincial seed-and-feed dealer. It was a fact that Ister riverboat captains did, often, try to disguise their trade: whatever might have been the case on the Mississippi, it was not looked upon as especially glamorous on the Ister; and those obviously of it were likely to be followed at a safe distance by small boys calling, “Here comes the onion-boat!” and similar indignity. The man was carefully dressed in a suit of best broadcloth obviously tailored by a middling-good provincial tailor of cut at least a generation out of date; his shirt was of staunch linen but it was visibly yellowed from lack of having been sun-bleached. Nearby rested just such a beaver hat as still found fashion and favor in, say, Poposhki-Georgiou. But the riverboat captain had forgotten to take off his deck-boots, as they were called. And he was still wearing the green-glassed spectacles, even though the yellow-red gaslight of Eszterhazy’s room did not glare as did the ripples on the river. So, when Eszterhazy merely waved a hand by way of introduction, saying, “And this is Uncle Iggy from Praz,” at the very most the others smiled gently. No one noticed that Uncle Iggy’s beard, brushed straight downwards, showed a tendency to part, as if it were customarily brushed bifurcated; anyway Uncle Iggy fairly often ran his hands down along it, unobtrusively pushing it together again. Nothing could have been done to shorten the nose, but, somehow, the glasses seemed to change it. And the pouched eyes were unobtrusive behind the green glasses. When someone asked, “And what do you do in Praz, ah, Uncle Iggy?” and the answer, “Well, I be in the feed-and-seed trade and also we do a good line in butter and egg,” was delivered in a rich Scythian-Slovatchko border accent — well, weren’t most riverboat captains from the Scythian-Slovatchko border country? — no one recollected that his R. and I. Majesty was also from exactly there. And who knew how much the Court Gothic accent irked him damnably? For that matter, who called to mind the disguised, nocturnal roamings of Haroun Al-Rashid? Pseudo-bourgeois Uncle Iggy loading up on the black bread and head-cheese with strong mustard was perhaps suspicious, but the suspicion led up the wrong road. As Uncle Iggy meant it to.

At length, during one of those inexplicable pauses which occur in conversation, Katinka Ivanovna made a small sound sufficient to attract attention, tossed the end of her hand-rolled cigarette into the fire-place. Then she gave a frank stretch. Then, glittering with good humor, she said that perhaps it was time to see if the spirits might be ready to come. At her requests the gaslights were turned low and a silence was to be kept until such time as it might appear to the company that she, Katinka Ivanovna, had passed into a trance state: after which, questions might be asked her; she herself requested only that they should not be questions seeking for personal gain. To this rather broad hint that no tips on the bourse would be forthcoming, the company turned up its eyes in horror... and perhaps some slight disappointment.... She lounged back in her chair and closed her eyes. The inevitable squirming of people who have been told to be quiet died away, there was a very audible stomach-gurgle, a guffaw broken off. Then... nothing... and again nothing ... then the breathing of Katinka Ivanovna grew heavier. Her eyes were now partly open. She was not sleeping. She was not awake. Then her host, by gesture, by raising his eyebrows, indicated that it might be question-time.

Countess Zulk sat up straight. “Our dear Katinka Ivanovna has told us many times of a Master Ascended who sometimes comes down from the Ghoolie Hills where his maha-ashram is; that is, in a non-material form he comes down, and if requested will impart messages of the deepest spiritual import. His name... his name is Maha Atma Chandra Gupta. I should like to enquire if Maha Atma Chandra Gupta would condescend to say something to us.”

There was a long silence. Then, suddenly, the lips of Katinka Ivanovna opened, and a voice spoke through them. It was not her voice. It was the voice of a man and it spoke in English, a clipped British English, but with a trace of something else... perhaps a lilt like that of Welsh. “ There is too much coriander in this curry!” the voice said, sharply. No one else spoke a word. After a while the voice spoke a word, several words, and this time it sounded very annoyed. “Dal?” it enquired. “Do you call this dal? An untouchable would not touch it! It causes me the utmost damned astonishment that you should set this before me, purporting it to be dal!” The voice ceased abruptly. Silence. The gaslight hissed. Again the voice spoke. It said, “Excellent/” The tone of sarcasm was unmistakable. “Excellent! Mango chutney without mango! Excellent!”

For another long moment the gas-light susurrated without further sound accompanying it. Then, so suddenly that everyone started, Madame Dombrovski was on her feet, her palm pressed to her bosom. “La!” she sang. “Fa so laaa . . .” In another moment, wide awake now, she burst into hearty laughter, her golden inlays a-gleam. “Pliz,” she begged, “pliz tall me, deed a spear-eat spick?”

Sudden embarrassment. Eszterhazy coughed. “The Maha Atma Chandra Gupta —”

“Ah, that great soul! Two hawndred yirs he is stayed een he’s maha ashram e’en the Ghoolie Heels communing veeth the avatars! Amrita, a spear-ritual nectar, they breeng he’m; udder vise only vonse a yir solid food he taked: dal veeth curry, a spoon fool. And mango chawtney, half a spoon fool. — Vhat he sayed?”

The company looked at each other, looked at Katinka Ivanovna, looked at Eszterhazy. Who again coughed. “Evidently the Great Soul spoke in metaphors which we, with our gross perceptions, were really not quite able to interpret. . . .”

Quite suddenly and with no word of warning — unless, indeed, a somewhat slurping sound caused by licking a blob of mustard off his knife could be so considered — Professor Gronk said, abruptly, “In regard to the Autogondola-Invention on which I have been working for five years in order to present it to Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania, my dearly adopted Parentland,” and there he stopped.

“My dear Professor,” said Eszterhazy, smoothly taking the savant gently by an elbow and turning him around, “I perceive that you have not yet tried the very-yellow goat-cheese, although your opinion is one which I particularly value.” Professor Gronk calmly reloaded his plate, plopped on some more mustard, and ate with a dreamy air.

“ ‘Goat-cheese,’ hah!” exclaimed Baron Burgenblitz. “The peasants in Hyperborea are cutting up about the goat-tax again, eh, and why? —why, the devil, or some other ancient influence, has gotten into their goatherds and they don’t want to have to pay twice ... ah I wish those tax-collectors come parading through my barony, damn them, I’d get up into my castle-fortress, pull up my drawbridge and bombard the lot with my artillery, damme if I wouldn’t!” And he gnashed his teeth and gazed all round about with bloodshot eyes and left little doubt that, given the opportunity, he would do just that. “A whiff of grape-shot, that’s what they need! I’d goat-tax them, rrrrgggghhhh!”

But at this point Katinka Ivanovna with mellow voice suggested that they sit down at table and try to find what the planchette had to tell. The oui-ja board somewhat resembled an easel laid flat, on which had been painted the letters of the alphabet and the first ten numbers, plus a few other signs. On it rested a sort of wooden trivet with casters. “Now,” suggested Eszterhazy, “if several of us, perhaps three, will sit down and place the tips of the fingers lightly on top of the planchette so that no single one person will be able to move it without the two others being aware, it is said that the spirits may guide it to various letters and numbers . . . perhaps by this method spelling out a message. So. If Katinka Ivanovna would be kind enough? If Countess Zulk —? And . . . oh? What? I myself? Oh. Well, very well. Now! Pard, if you will kindly observe the letters which the planchette touches as it moves, and call them out? And if someone else will please use this pencil and paper to write them down? Ah! Uncle Iggy! Thank you very much! Shall we begin?”

The three of them sat around the small table with their fingers resting lightly on the light piece of wood. Once more: silence. Nothing moved but the gas-flame and its shadows. Then something else did. The planchette suddenly and very smoothly glided across the board towards the arch of letters. Then it glided back. Then . . .

The lateness of the hour had not prevented Professor Gronk from methodically continuing to graze his way along the sideboard, and the bottle-shaped bulges in his coat-pocket showed where anyway some of the otherwise undrunk beer, lemonade, and bullblood wine had gone. At length he paused. Gave a long, slow look up and down. All that remained was a half a pot of mustard. Dreamily, the Professor took up a small spoon and calmly consumed the contents of the pot. He stayed a moment, a long moment, looking into it. Then he gave a huge eructation. Then, the attention of his host and the one other remaining guest having been attracted, he said, “The aerolines.”

“The aerolines?”

“The aerolines. For the Autogondola-Invention. I have just had an idea.” And, doubtless thinking deeply of the idea, Professor Gronk glided away, still holding the mustard-spoon in one hand.

Uncle Iggy had looked up, but he did not speak until the inventor was gone. Then he asked, “This . . . invention . . . ?”

Eszterhazy pursed his lips. His moustache was grown thicker; now and then he was obliged to trim it. “It has ... as an idea... some merits. Some . . . possibilities. Perhaps we shall live to see them realized.”

Uncle Iggy said that perhaps they might live to see the moon mined for cheese. Then he picked up the paper on which he had written down the letters indicated by the planchette as it moved hither and fro upon the oui-ja board, and lightly smacked it with his free hand. It had been found necessary to eliminate a number of letters; this was perhaps usually the case; out of what was left, one or two statements had been extracted... no one had cared to call them messages. Eszterhazy issued a slight sigh. “Ah yes, the spirits tonight seemed rather concerned with food. Still... I hope you were amused . . . ?”

Guest seemed to wrestle a moment with answer, head crooked earnestly to one side, lips moving before utterance was quite ready. Gas-light reflected on polished wood and brass and glass, made shifting shadows on flowered wall-paper.

“Diverted. Yes. I was amused... sometimes.... Always, though, I was diverted. And ah my God! how I need diversion. Ah it’s not like in the old days, before the Big Union,” when, of course, the Two Kingdoms and the Hegemonies had become the Empire; “in those days you could call the Turkish Gypsies or the Mountain Tsiganes into the Old Palace and you could sing and dance and stamp your feet and break wind,” (though “break wind” he did not precisely say), “but nowadays, damn it, oh well. — Yes. Now, that American poet from the American Far-vestern Province, his loyalty to that Valker Villiams or whatever name, really a mere adventurer I suspects, but admirable loyalty and his half-wild costume so fascinating, even that beast Burgenblitz was taken with him by and by — hah! the Pard gave Burgen’ a very good answer I thought! And why of course cut my foot off,” (though “my foot” he did not precisely say), “if that Madame Dombrovski ain’t a fine full figger of a woman!”

His face, which had lit up, now became somewhat troubled. “But, now, Engli, what d’you make of this here,” and he held up the paper.

Hog-lard hundred ducat a hundredweight, Eszterhazy read aloud. Such was the first message, if “message” really it was, of the spirits across the board. “Hmm, well, the lard-merchants at any rate should be happy.”

“Uncle” raised eyebrows. “Oh, should they? If the lard alone costs a hundred ducks a hundredw’ight, how much d’you think the rest of the hog’s going to cost?”

“Why ... I had not thought.”

Guest made a sound between groan and grunt. “No, I suppose not. Not yours to think about. Mine to think about. If hog-lard’s so high, it follows that pork be high too; if pork be high, what of mutton, beef, chicking, what of oat, wheat, grain in general, what of spuds? What’s the cause of it a-going to be? Drought? Blight? Pest? All? Oh sweet caro mi Jesu, not war I do pray?”

Host said that there might well be nothing in the planchette’s commu­nication at all, or if there were, it might refer perhaps to a century in the future when the value of monetary units would have progressively declined, “owing to the inevitable spread of systems of credit. . . .”

Uncle Iggy did not however feel that spirits had come to speak of the price of hog-lard a century hence. “No, it’s for me own time, depend upon it. Some message to me. Tо warn about famine. At least. What’s to be

done, Engelbert?”

Engelbert Eszterhazy let his chin sink upon his chest. Then he brought it up again. “I should see to it, subtly as possible, that the Agricultural Ministry set up or buy up or even long-term lease up very many dry places to store Indian com and then other grain; these gradually to be stocked according to general market price.”

His guest stood up. “What do you philosopher fellows call it? Ha, yes,‘a counsel of perfection,’ well, it’s something to think about and you be sure I am a-going to think about it. Political economy and much such fine phrases I gladly leave to others but when I hear of hog-lard at one hundred ducks a hundredw’ight, why, then I have to think about the Old Man and the Old Woman and the kids at the little old farm in the fields and what might happen to them if prices go high as that. — Engli! My thanks! Oh no you don’t follow me out, neither. ’Night.”

Rather soberly Engelbert Eszterhazy, Doctor of Philosophy, aspirant Doctor of Science, considered what had just been spoken. It was said that the great Cuvier could conceive of an entire species on the basis of a single bone; now here was Ignats Louis — always Eszterhazy had thought him a fine man but of never very much mind at all — conceiving of war, famine, pestilence, and death... and all on the basis of a single theoretical commodity price. It was remarkable. Whatever it meant. Or whatever it would some day mean.

The Minister of Law was closeted with the Minister of War. The latter, his ministry being the senior, spoke first. “Well, I see we have two reports before us. One is on the possible dangers arising out of a demarche on our borders on the part of Graustark and Ruritania, to occur shortly; sons of bitches, why don’t they go bother the Bulgars?” The question being rhetorical, he proceeded without waiting for an answer, “And the other is the latest threat of the Baron Burgenblitz of Blitzenburg, etc., an Officer of the Imperial Jaegers, etc., etc.; son of a bitch, why doesn’t he go bother the Bulgars?” In neither case did he say, precisely, “bother.”

The Minister of Law shrugged. “But let us discuss him first, as I am sure that you have already a filed plan in case of invasion by Ruritania and Graustark, whereas we do not have a filed plan in regard to the Baron Burgenblitz. His latest threat is based on his alleged feudal right to refuse to allow one faggot of firewood to be taken from every cart thereof by way of way-tax.”

The Minister of War swore frightfully and then very rapidly stuffed snuff up each nostril and sneezed behind his hand and wiped everything with a large and rather unmilitary-looking handkerchief. Then he asked, “And has he said right?”

The Minister of Law looked rather like a Talmudic scholar who, having just presented the most beautifully lucid argument showing how in a certain instance Hillel was right and Shammai was wrong, has at length come to the point where he must needs present the fact that nevertheless in that instance Shammai was right and Hillel was wrong. “Well, in a way. Yes. Technically, if it were presented to the Court of Compurgation and Replevin, there is no doubt that the Court, if pushed into a corner, would sustain him. But, well, for one thing, the Crown has repeatedly offered to present to the Diet a Schedule whereby his and all other such rights would be bought out; and all the Parties have agreed to support it. But the cockchafer won’t apply to be bought out. And as for forcing him to sell out, well, that presents problems, too. The Autarchian Parties would not support it, surrender of feudal privilege must be voluntary and gradual, they say. Just as the Socialists and Liberals will not support his going on and denying himself the duty of paying all the same taxes as others. Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch.” The Minister of Law pulled at his very full mutton-chop whiskers. But no solution came out of them, pull as he would.

The Minister of War said that Socialist and Liberal leaders might publicly protest Burgenblitz’s reactionary actions, but — he thumped the green table between them — perhaps privately they were glad of them. “When he ignored the toll-gates, claiming Special Privilege, who knows how many Conservatives became more liberal or how many Agrarian Smallholders began to think socialist? True, he did pay the tolls eventu­ally, but he might refuse again whenever he feels like it. Same with cattle-tax, same with the church-tax, with his, ‘The priest must have a pig?’ says he; ‘I’ll give him the runt of the litter,’ now that just promotes freethinking and infidelity — what century does he think he’s living in? Keeps roaring and yelling that if he is bothered he’ll retreat into his castle-fortress at Blitzenburg and haul up the drawbridge and fire on anyone who comes near him, ho! Wish they’d let me have a free hand, then! ‘My castle is my home?’ what! Just watch me with one battery of artillery reduce his home to rubble: boom-boom! BOOM! Eh?”

The Minister of Law sighed. “Yes, no doubt. But in this year of his Reign the Emperor does not wish to reduce a subject’s home to rubble. Why doesn’t Burgenblitz of Blitzenburg plant wheat and shoot birds like other country gentlemen?”

But the Minister of War had no other reply to this than furiously to stuff snuff up his nostrils as though each one were the touch-hole of an artillery-piece.

Dr. Engelbert Eszterhazy was certainly of the aristocracy, but so distant from its main branches that no one had expected anything more of him than that, so to speak, he ride a horse and shoot a firearm; he had not even been expected to tell the truth, although he did. He had performed his military service with honor and his palace duty with the same. IL might henceforth do as he pleased, and although it had not been foreseen that he would be pleased to undertake a seemingly endless series of studies, nevertheless that is what he had been doing. “He’ll get brain fever at this rate,” it was said, but he did not get it; neither did he retire to some distant castle to fill its neighborhood with rumor and with terror as did Count Valad Drakulya; neither did he go to Paris and ride a white mare through the Bois and now and then dismount in order to milk her into a silver tassy from which he then sipped, as did Count Albert de Toulouse-Lautrec. He did not fight duels. He did not join hunting-battues in which thousands of game-birds or -animals were driven before the guns of the shooters . .. but these eccentric non-performances were eventually accepted. Often he had gone abroad, and though he had learned not only to accept the smiles which visited mention of his nation’s name but to admit how much the smiles were justified . . . foreign ambassadors invited, for example, to an Imperial Review in honor of the grand opening of a sanitary sewer in Bella: one which turned out to be the first sanitary sewer in the Empire ... nevertheless it was to his own nation that he always returned.

Incomparably less large and vast than the Russian Empire, incomparably less powerful than the German Empire, incomparably less sophisticated than the Austro-Hungarian Empire — still, Scythia-Pannonia- Transbalkania, its mere name a subject for risibility elsewhere, was his Empire, his native land. It may not have functioned very well? so much the more he was pleased that it functioned at all. Its Secret Police was a joke? so much the more he too would enjoy the joke; no one laughed at the Secret Polices in the other empires. Its many languages rivalled Babel or Pentecost? let them: at least here no schoolboy was flogged for praying in whatsoever minor mother tongue. One empire had already, fairly recently, gone from the political map of Europe; and although the name of Bonaparte still rang like a tocsin here and there, it was uncertain the Prince Imperial would himself ever ring it successfully.

Day by day others asked, how fared their country’s wheat compared with Russian wheat, its butter with Danish butter, its timber with Carpa­thian timber, its tar with Baltic tar, its cloth with English cloth? Day by day the same spokes of the universal wheel flashed by: love, sorrow, terror, death, success, failure, hunger, joy, growth, decay, weakness, strength: the wheel turned and turned and turned: nothing stayed the same, no one bathed twice in the same flowing water for the water had flowed on and flowed away. There is no star at the pole of the universe, young Dr. Eszterhazy recollected the ancient astronomer; and if there was and had long been but blankness in the comparable area in his own country, then might there not be space and place for him? What he hoped for, others did not even think of; what others did not think, might he not think of?

And, after thinking, do?

As for fuel, if it were burnable, in Bella they burned it. Charcoal, firewood, peat from the bogs of Vloxland (though in Bella only the Vloxfolk burned it, perhaps because only they had the patience to wait for it to boil a pot), coke from the Great Central Gas Plant (It was not very great and there was, as a result, not very much coke; but every British firm and office preferred it. Others were suspicious: coke was new.), anthracite and bituminous coal . . . Everyone was agreed that anthracite burned better, cleaner, hotter — once it was burning — but there was the trouble of getting it to burn — and if it were necessary to dump it on a fire already burning with some other fuel, why, the feeling was general, why not simply go on using the other fuel. . . instead? There were and had long been not very far from Bella two mines producing a bituminous coal so soft as to be rather friable. One was still in the hands of the descendants of the mine-serfs, who operated as a sort of de facto cooperative; the soft coal hewed out easily enough and the pit was not deep enough to be dangerous, nor was there any new-fangled nonsense about a tipple, grading and sorting the lumps according to size: you either took it as the coalmen brought it, slid and scooped off the coal-carts into ox-hide sacks and thence into the coal-shed in the back by the alley-door ... or you did without and used something besides soft coal . . . or . . . nowadays . . . perhaps you brought it from Brunk.

Originally the Brunk mine-and-delivery service had operated the same way as the other one did, but bit by bit Brunk Brothers had bought their fellow-miners out. There had been three Brunk Brothers; now there was one. For a quarter century, Brunk Brothers had concentrated on supplying the railroad. And Brunk Brothers still did. But Bruno Brunk had always had in mind that he would someday capture the market for the stoves and fireplaces of Bella, and long he studied it. What was the weakness of the other coaling company in regard to this market? — so he asked. The answer was not hard to find: the local soft coal was so soft that it tended to crumble, and it kept on crumbling; housewife and servant were always busy with broom and shovel sweeping up the little bits and pieces and the coal dust, and dumping it all on the fire. It made things, well, dirty. This did not bother the men who brought in the coal from the Old Pit, for things were dirty anyway if you worked in or near coal. “Feathers is cleaner,” was their common comment to complaints. Sometimes, referring to their product’s undeniable cheapness, they would say, “Burn gold.”

The first hint that something else might be an answer came when Bruno Brunk bought a bankrupt wood-yard where the canal came into the Little Ister. Sumps were dug. Vats and sluices were made. Folks hardly knew what was a-going on. So, suddenly, hoardings all around

town blossomed with posters advertising Brunk’s Clean-Washed Coal. Wagons delivered it — not carts: wagons. It came in slabs of several sizes and each slab had, you see, here was the genius of it, had been washed. And each slab was wrapped in paper, cheap paper to be sure, but wrapped. And each slab (lumps were also sold but they were in paper bags), and each neatly-wrapped slab was tied with twine, cheap twine to be sure, but tied. One simply put a small bag of lump-coal on the grate and a slab of wrapped-coal а-top: then one lit the bag (having first, as instructed, nipped a small hole for air). By the time the bag-paper was burned away, the lumps were burning; by the time the slab-paper had burned away, the slab was burning. There was, to be sure, still soot; Brunk had not thought of everything. But still it was cleaner, oh yes it was cleaner, oh God it was cleaner!

. . . well, it did cost a bit more. . . .

The suppliers of the Old Pit coal watched their better-class business vanish, and they watched in dumb surprise. Then they scowled, ground their teeth, kicked their ponies, cursed, got drunk, beat their wives. Their wives, none of whom had ever heard that a voice ever soft and low was an excellent thing in women, beat them back. Presently and with police permission a petitional parade was seen marching through Bella, and it was composed of men whom much boiling and soaping and scrubbing had turned from their usual coal-black to a singular and singularly nasty reddish-grey: these were The Humble and Hardworking Loyal Laborers in the Pit of Coal, as their quasi-partnership was called. In effect, the petition petitioned that Government should Do Something; and what did Government Do? Government’s reply boiled down to two words in a language not generally spoken by the local coal-workers, to wit, Laissez-faire.

Dr. Eszterhazy, in a general way, had been aware of all this, as Dr. Eszterhazy, in a general way, was aware of everything in Bella. Sometimes, he felt, he was perhaps too much aware; he had just escaped from an original (as it might be kindly to call him) who desired his patronage to perfect a process whereby clarified goose-grease might be used for lamp-oil. Eszterhazy somehow felt that this was a fuel for which the world was not yet prepared... generally speaking... but this did not mean that the process was yet without value: he had given the original in fact a note to the Semi-permanent Under-secretary of Natural Resources and Commerce, suggesting that that ministry should have tests conducted. At what temperature would clarified goose-grease freeze? At what, turn rancid? Should the freezing-point prove very low and the rancid-point very high, the product might be promoted to foreign ship-chandlers provisioning long sea-voyages. Not only might it light the lamps but, should supplies run out, it might feed the crews. It would be healthier than lard and tastier than salt-butter; perhaps more economical as well.

Bella might even become the anserine equivalent of the city quaintly called “Porkopolis,” in the American province of Mid-vest.

... and should said ministry, faute de mieux, engage Doctor Eszterhazy himself to make those tests ... well, nothing wrong with that, was there?

This being in his mind, he was perhaps only mildly surprised to see a girl herding geese down Lower Hunyadi Street. She wore the traditional blue gauze fichu of the goose-girls of Pannonia; the goose-girls of Panno- nia formed an almost infinite source of folk-lore. Who had not, as a child, and perhaps as an adult, listened to the Lament of the Poor Little l tty Bitty Goose-girl of Pannonia, Betrayed by A Nobly-born Stinkard, and failed to shed tears? Who would not recall lying on the floor by the firelight one lowering winter afternoon whilst listening to old Tanta Rukhelle, spectacles halfway down her nose, reading the story of the poor goose-girl of Pannonia frozen to death whilst faithfully tending her master’s goose in a sudden snowstorm? What popular melodrama or even new-fangled operetta could fail to include at least one scene with a poor little goose-girl in it? It was with, therefore, totally benignant reflections that he watched this particular poor little goose-girl from (presumably) Pannonia marching down the street; she was, equally traditionally, bare-footed, and — with her blue gauze fichu and her lament — equally evocative; the effect was only slightly marred by the fact that she weighed about 300 pounds. Eszterhazy, and, doubtless, everyone else watching noted that her bare feet were quite black: and so, from halfway down their traditionally white bodies, were her geese. And after her came about five-and- thirty other such goose-girls, all of approximately the same description and proportions, also driving piebald geese and also lamenting; nor was this all.

Right behind them came marching a group of the downstream laundresses, creating rather an effect in their unexpectedly sooty shifts; and, as they marched, they did not merely lament: they banged upon their washboards. And they yelled.

Loudly.

He resumed his walk in a rather pensive mood.

What did Brunk say? Brunk preferred to say nothing. What did the Council and Corporation of the City of Bella say? Officially? Nothing. Unofficially? Unofficially they pointed out that it was, after all, Brunk’s coal and Brunk’s coalyard and Brunk’s riverine rights and there was not a damned thing in the laws preventing Brunk from doing what he wanted to do with any of them. It even suggested (unofficially) that the downstream laundresses might choose to launder upstream; but even unofficially it did not suggest that the entire Kingdom of Pannonia, which also lay downstream, might also choose to move upstream. What did the newspapers say? Very little . . . as yet. .. The newspapers did, however, print an occasional “historical essay” indicative of the fact that (a) the

Emperor, besides being also King of Scythia, was also King of Pannonia. .. and, incidentally (b) did possess certain feudal powers as,Warden of the Waters. Nobody out-and-out pointed out that if the Imperial Crown, as a Royal Crown, were suddenly to exercise its feudal (as distinct from its constitutional) powers, how this might strengthen the position of any feudal-minded nobleman intent upon exercising his own feudal powers. Things were seldom simple, and this was clearly not one which was. Meanwhile, did the middle-class housewives of Bella, the best custom­ers of Brunk’s Clean Washed Coal, patriotically boycott the product? Well, one ... it was, after all, clean ... it was, after all, not merely convenient, it was fashionable . . . other things were really not the consideration of Women . . . their own laundry was done at home with well-water . . . and what were the waters of Pannonia to them? . . . One fears that, no, they did not patriotically boycott the product.

The path of progress did not run smooth. Or even smoothly.

“Gracious sir,” asked a man who stopped Dr. Eszterhazy on the street; a man in the traditional pink felt boots worn by Hyperborean elders on festal or formal occasions; “Gracious sir, you has the look of a educated and a influential noble: can you tell me where I should git to aks about the spiritual seductions of our he-goats Back Home?”

Used as he was to odd and unusual questions, this one did startle. So much that he instantly wished to learn more. “Uncle Johnus,” said he

— Uncle was merely common good usage in Hyperborea from a younger man to his elder, and half the men Back Home there were named Johnus

— “Uncle Johnus, if you tell me more maybe I can tell you more, so let us sit down at the tavern table yonder and have fresh rolls and roasted pig-pizzle with a pipkin of rasberry wudky, and do you tell me about that; the cost,” he said, smoothly, noting a suddenly-appearing furrow on the other’s brow, “will be borne by me Out of the revenues of my grandser’s estates, which otherwise we gentry might too easily be tempted to spend on champagne wine and gypsy-girl-dancers. Come on over here, Uncle Johnus.”

Came Uncle Johnus? Uncle Johnus came. “I can always tell a noble gent when I sees one,” he said, contentedly. He skipped upon the rough stone street as though it had been made of velvet. “I take it, my lord YoungLord, that you has travelled amongst us Back Home for you known ezaxtly what we in the High Hyperborea likes for a high snack. . . .” Eszterhazy, feigning a sudden grimness which he did not entirely feel, said, truthfully enough, “I am the great-great-grandson of Engelbert Slash-Turk, the Hero of Hyperborea, through two lines of descent.” Uncle Johnus attempted simultaneously to kiss the brow, cheeks, hand, knees, and feet of the descendant, etc., but was prevented, the descendant employing the magic formula, “Don’t spill the wudky.”

Having managed to avoid spilling the wudky anywhere but down his bearded throat and having eaten the first dish of rolls with as much delight and relish as if they had been petit-fours, Uncle Johnus began to tell the matter which had, by vote of his home hamlet, sent him to the Imperial Capital; for, said he, “I tried to learn some’at in Apollograd,” provincial capital of the Hetmanate of Hyperborea, “but they laugh at me there, me lord YoungLord: they laugh at me!” Eszterhazy assured him, with perfect truth, that he would not laugh at him; thus assured, the man went on. Goats were very canny creatures, Uncle Johnus said... he-goats in particular. They could perfectly well remember that once upon a time in old pagan days they had been worshiped as gods (“They mammal was mommets, in them days,” he put it). But since then generally speaking, being subjected for example along with other animals domestic to an annual aspersion by the priests in blessing, such holy water had druv such unholy ideas clear out of their heads. Mostly. However. Lately —

Here the waiter arrived with the bowls of roast pigs’ pizzle; Uncle Johnus looked from this to Eszterhazy and from Eszterhazy back to the goodies. Eszterhazy helped himself and gestured that his guest should do so, too; conversation, it being assumed, could wait.

And wait it did. By and by Uncle Johnus licked his fingers and-wiped his immense moustaches on some fresh roll pieces and ate them and sipped some more rasberry wudky and swallowed and began to speak again. Them goats, now. Lately, however, through the agency of those whom or that which Johnus was rather he not be asked to name, the he-goats had begun to waver in their allegiance to the new and true religion. “They now runs away from the herds, Slash-Turk. They has crowns and garlands а-put upon their heads as in olden days. And they dances — ah, YoungLord Slash-Turk, yes, to the sound of that evil music they dances! They prances! They like to run wild in that there frenzy! Sometimes they carries on till they be dead, or sometimes they dashes off cliffs. And it’s a terror and a worry and a fright to us, Slash-Turk YoungLord, what if they be not а-coming down to serve the she-goats in the breeding-season? We shall have no goat-kids ... no kid-skins ... by and by, so, no more goats ... no cheese ... no milk... no meat... nor no leather. . . .

“And after that, sir: what then?”

The immense wax-lights in the Grand Chamber of the Privy Council were not needed at the moment, but custom required that they be lit, and so lit they were, and their immense wax tears seemed a silent accompaniment to the words being spoken. With an immense sigh, the Prince- President of the Privy Council said that their Intelligence Service was clearly not as keen as it ought to be. The Turks, partly because of British pressure, partly because of Russian pressure, partly because of Prussian

pressure, and partly because of no Turkish pressure at all — the Turks had recognized that it was just about moving-day in their two predomi­nantly non-Turkish provinces of Western Wallachia and Neo-Macedonia. The Turks had recognized that they were to leave, and to leave soon. The expectation was that these two provinces would probably become auton­omous nations.

“If this is what our non-keen Intelligence Service should have informed us but perhaps failed to,” said a Privy Councillor, “we may as well cut it out of the Budget and subscribe to the Swedish or the Portuguese newspapers instead. You tell us in effect that applesauce is good with pork. True. We already know it. Applesauce.”

The Prince-President raised from his stoop. Again the scarlet ribbon of the Great Order was a taut slash across his bosom. “So. Do you already know this? That our neighbors, those two rapacious, tough, absurdly small principalities of Ruritania and Graustark, have between them hatched a scheme to become extremely large at the expense of just about everyone else? Even now . . . now, I mean now . . . they are conducting secret manoeuvres in the Disputed Areas, where not so much as a sheep-warden or a Rural Constable patrols to prevent them, and if no immediate and tangible gesture intervenes within two days, it has been agreed between them thus: one will annex Western Wallachia and one will annex Neo-Macedonia: thus at one stroke we are to be presented with two newer, bigger, more swollen, more swaggering neighbors upon our eastern borders . . . likely at once to dispute even more than is already disputed... and this is a prospect which” — his voice arose over the cries of outrage and the groans of dismay — “a prospect which we never envisaged and for which we are absolutely not prepared . . .”

Someone demanded to know what the Turks were likely to do. “ ‘Do’? They will protest and demand compensation and they will loot and slay some other Christian folk, one which has the misfortune to live on the Asian and not the European side of the Bosporus —”

“The British?”

“They will make speeches in Parliament and cry, ‘Hear, hear!’ ”

The Austrians . . . Russians . . . Prussians . . . French? “A fait accompli.”

A silence.

An elderly Councillor asked, “Might not His Majesty, even as a temporary gesture, invoke the powers presumably latent in his Family’s ancient title of ‘Emperor de jure of New Rome and all Byzantium via Marriage by Proxy?’ ”

A murmur.

The Prime Minister cast a look of agony upon His Majesty, but His Majesty did not even look up at him, spoke without raising his bowed head. “His Majesty has just immediately recently, at the request of the

Turks in connection with the question of Little Byzantia, renounced that title. It has not yet been gazetted, but the assumpsit has been signed.” And, having signed, Ignats Louis bore the burden, and deftly led the pack on another scent. Another moment they sat and wondered what the Turk would do about Little Byzantia now —

A younger Privy Councillor demanded to know, Why were they all just nrting there? Had they not a Navy? At this the Minister for Navy awoke with a start which alone reminded them that he had been there all along; the same Privy Councillor at once demanded to know, Had they not an Army? Arose the Minister for War. Grimly. Yes [he said], they had an Army. He refrained from telling them why they had not a larger Army [he said], nor would he refer to last year’s decision to diminish the Army’s share of the Budget [he said]. “The facts are, however, that we have not a very large Army, that our Army is deployed here and there and mostly not near the eastern border, and that the Annual General Militia Call-up had been postponed because the harvest was late and the Militia-men were needed to help bring it in at home. Which they are now doing. ”

“For if not,” interjected the Minister of Agriculture, “perhaps it will spoil, prices will soar, and maybe not enough to eat.”

“Hog-lard at a hundred ducats a hundredw’ight,” said His Majesty, not bothering to bother with Court Gothic. One great groan rang through the Great Chamber, and the senior socialist Privy Councillor, a notorious Freethinker, was observed to spit three times in the palm of his hand and then surreptitiously to knock on the wooden framework of his upholstered chair. Field Marshals and Ministers, Aristocrats or Political Leaders though they were, still, the facts of farm life lurked never far away from any of them. Asked a labor leader, “Oh sire! That high?”

Sire said merely, “It ain’t mud that puts fat on the hogs, master. It’s maize.”

The leader of the Opposition asked, “ *.. . within two days,’ eh? And what is the very soonest that an effective body of troops could be moved to the eastern borders?”

Said the Minister of War: “Three days.”

Meanwhile, Eszterhazy had not only found no answer to the Mystery of the Goats, he had not even found a way perhaps to finding an answer. By the time he returned from his walk he was still perplexed. He made a note of the question; then he turned to his work of the moment, a laboratory experiment he carried on at home as adjunct to the one which formed his current project at the Royal-Imperial Institute of Science. Some time passed: he was thus still engaged when a loud knock at the door, a loud voice, and a loud trampling of feet advised him that he had a guest. And which guest he had.

“Why, Doc,” asked Pard Powell, “why or yew at home in thuh middle

a thee afternoon on sitch a beautiful day? And why not in thuh great outdoor, a-breathin in a thuh sweet soft air? Not ta be found, a course, in thuh middle a town, but shorely we kin rint a couple a ponies and go fur a leetle ride along the river and inter the trees! Why, when I was livin on the boundless prairies as thuh adoptid child a thuh Red Skin People, why my hort beat loud with joy whiniver I buh-held a wild aminal or heard a sweet-singin bird, now —” Simultaneous with Eszterhazy’s suddenly becoming aware that two of the glass pieces of his experimental equipment were improperly connected, Pard Powell reached out and imperturbably connected them; almost at once remarking, “I needn’t tell you, Doctor, that silver and mercury are incompatible,” with no trace of dialect or accent in his voice.

“No,” said Eszterhazy. “No, you needn’t.” Their eyes met. “Nor need you tell me that it was from the Red Skin People that you learned the techniques of analytical chemistry, for I fear I would not believe you if you do.” Pard half-turned, made narrow his eyelids. Of a sudden, a certain English word flashed into Eszterhazy’s mind as though the very paragraph in the dictionary lay exposed before him. Glau-cous. 1. Of a pale yellow-green color. 2. Of a light blue-grey or bluish white color. 3. Having a frosty appearance. 4. . . . But never mind 4. It seemed to him that even as he looked, the pupil of the American’s eye turned from pale yellow-green to light bluish-grey to bluish white to pale yellow-green again; and . .. always . . . frosty. It was damnably odd. It was uncanny.

Not changing his gaze, Pard said, “Well, no, Doctor, of course not. You see, not only was I once a student, and a good one, too, of the Academy of the State of New Jersey; but I later owned the best pharmacy in Secaucus. If only I could have been content to go on compounding calomel and jalap pills for constipated house-frows and brown mixture for their coughing kids and tincture of cardamom for their flatulent husbands, I might be not merely prosperous now, which I am not: I might be rich. But one day it got to be too much for me, and just then along came a drummer in pharmaceuticals and I sold out — lock, stock, barrel, mortar, and pestle. And I went out West. And that is how Washington Parthenopius Powell metamorphosed into Pard Powell. Oh, to be sure, I have put a lot of fancy stitches into the splendid cloth on the embroidery hoop of my life. Well, why not? But don’t take it for granted that all the gorgeous touches are lies. They’re not. — Well. . . Not all.”

He gave his head a slight jerk, and all the mass of dark-red waving hair rose and fell. There was a flash from the glaucous eyes. He laid his hand upon his heart. “And as I puts it in my Fifth Epic Poem in Honor of William Walker the Last Conkwistadoree:

Thudding onward o’er the Plains of wide San Peedro Sula

From whence the dusky Spanish Dons extracted mucho moola,

We brothe the air that freemen breath and all our cry was ‘Freedom,’ We relished it like champagne wine, or Dutchmen relish Edam —

“Whut say we go fur a ride, Doc?”

Eszterhazy burst into laughter. “By all means, yes let us go for a ride. Let me, first, put some things in order here.” Not instantly remembering what the botanical specimens were which he picked up to dispose of, absentmindedly he gave them a sniff and was about to administer an exploratory, if cautious, lick, when Pard Powell cried aloud and dashed forward.

“Don’t eat them things, Doc! They’ull drive ya plumb loco! Them’s jimson weed!”

Astonished, aghast, Eszterhazy gazed at the plants. “Why . . . these were, allegedly, woven into crowns to garland the heads of he-goats in Hyperborea. What do you —”

The Far-vestern Yankee frontier poet said he hoped to Helen his pal Doc Elmer Estherhasty didn’t have him no goats there wherever. “Why looky thar if that ain’t the very flower outa the devil’s garden, Datura stramonium, or I’m a dirtbird!”

Lightning seemed to flash in the makeshift laboratory there in a small scullery-room at Schweitz’s hotel. “Surely a relative of the deadly night­shade, a prime ingredient in witches’ brew!”

Pard Powell pulled his long red-brown moustache. “Durn tootin! As well as Hyoscyamus niger, alias henbane; and — as you so closely perceive the nomenclaytcher—A tropa belladonna, or deadly nightshade. Anyone a them will make ya curdle your dander, make ya scamper and cavort and run ginerally mad. Or, as we so aptly puts it Out West, Loco! As well as which, it might well kill ya.”

There was a sort of ringing in Eszterhazy’s ears. He shook his head emphatically. “Is there any reason why i/ze-goats should be exempt from the effects?”

“None that I kin think of. . . shc-chickcns ain’t. Hen-bane. Git it?”

“Could the scent of the plants cause humans near it to think that they had heard a sound like music? Fifing? Or . . . piping?”

“Not that I — well, durn it, eph yew thenk that, time we got outa this stuffy ol’ suite! Let’s go for a ride!”

Somehow or other it happened that they made a few stops in the course of their ride. Professor Gronk was found deep in his plans at his work­shop. Without looking up and as though the newcomers had been there all along, he said, “Straw would provide the heat for the ascendant aspects of the Autogondola-Invention. But straw would not fuel the engine. Wood is insufficiently concentrated, and hence too heavy. Coal, the same. Coke is better, but i.till: too heavy. I have as yet no method of

drawing the flammable gases out of the atmosphere.”

Scarcely pausing to consider that his question might be considered not serious and therefore resented, Dr. Eszterhazy asked, “What of clarified goose-grease?”

The Professor said that he had not been working with the problem of liquid fuel. “The engine is not set up for it. Then there is the problem of the integument. [“The... integument?”] Silk is unquestionably still the best. I have no silk. White absorbs too little heat, black absorbs too much heat, red alone will do. Silk. Red.” He spoke as though speaking very simply to children. “Of each piece,” he made measuring gestures, “such a size. Two hundred and sixty-four such a size pieces. The glue I have only to heat. The wicker I have already framed. The engine is ready. I require only a satisfactory fuel, hot and yet light. Also of red silk, two hundred and sixty-four pieces of such and such a size.” He turned upon his two visitors a look of such combined melancholy and appeal that they felt obliged to repeat the measuring gestures until he was convinced they understood.

“Well, Purfessur, that certainly is a wonderful thing,” said Pard Powell, slowly edging away. “I’ll sure think about that. I’ll sure be keepin my eye out for red silk. — Whut the Hell’s the little guy talkin about, Elmer?” he asked, once they were outside again.

Outside, in the scarcely paved streets between the old wooden houses, children clapped and sang and danced. A food vendor chanted to them, “ Delicate eating? Delicate eating? A nice portion of large beef-gut stuffed with chopped lung and rice, sauced with onion and garlic and red peppers in the Avar style? Two pennikks, only two pennikks, delicate eating?” But they did not pause for it. Eszterhazy assured his friend that it was an acquired taste. They cantered on. At the next corner they stopped in order for Pard to buy a bundle of the small flags of, of course, Scythia- Pannonia-Transbalkania, the sort which are flown, or, rather, waved, at parades. There was no parade due; but the vendor, a wizened cretin from the Friulian Alps, perhaps, did not know this. Nor — seeing that he was, after all, selling the flags — needed he care. “Be good souvenirs for back home. I’ll give ’em to the Injuns. They already got pitchers a them pie-faced Presidents.”

Farther along, and in a considerably better-housed neighborhood, if not one where you were likely to meet your maiden aunt or her pastor, a woman waved from a window and called out a greeting which they politely returned. The greeting was followed by an invitation which they politely declined. At the next window, another woman. Another greeting. Another invitation. And at the next window . . . And at the next . . . And . . .

“Dunno why they need any light," said Pard, who had already pushed his sombrero to a rakish angle. “Them red petticuts is bright enough.”

They rode on a moment or so before the same thought occured to them. They mentioned the name and the need of Professor Gronk. And ... it is to be feared . . . they both burst out laughing. “Sure to be silk,” Pard declared. Still... He began to sing:

“I ain’t got no use for the women, the ladies and girls o’ the town: They’ll stick to a man when he’s winnin, and step on his face when he’s down. . . .”

By and by they found themselves fairly near the mouth of the Little Ister where it disembogued into the Ister proper, and whom should they see sitting on her invariable stool but that well-known character, the Frow Widow Wumple. Wumple (“God rest his soul”) had been a master boatwright; his prows were famous: “dumpling-cutters” they were called; and his relict lived by renting out the ways. Right now no vessel was hauled up for repairs, scraping, caulking, painting ... but who knew what rascal might care to try? . . . and then try getting away without paying! Therefore, as always, the Frow Widow Wumple on her stool. Conversation with her was always interesting, providing only that one had an infinite capacity for hearing the phrase, “Ah, they didn’t have none o’ them things when / was a gal!” — and Dr. Eszterhazy had. Today the list of things which they didn’t have none of when the Widow Wumple was a girl included: store-boughten butter, paved roads, a disgusting French disease called la grippe, indoor plumbing, and some foreign food named sandwhich... the Widow Wumple wasn’t quite sure what this last was, but was sure it was unwholesome. “. . . bound to be... ” Another thing, etc., was gentlemen who would light up segars and not offer one to a poor old woman with the affliction in both legs and scarce a pennikk to bless herself with; Eszterhazy was so remorseful and hasty that he forgot to blow out the lucifer match before tossing it away.

“... and she says to me [puff], ‘So you see Mother Wumple [puff], we be getting married in church so I hopes you won’t draw the wrong conclusion.’ [Puff] 'See?’ says I. T ben’t blind,’ says I. ‘Wrong conclusion, indeed,’says I. [Puff-puff] ‘I’ve had 11 children of me own and can count up to nine as well as the next one, the wedding feast we needn’t ask about but send me some sugared almonds from the chrismation snack,’ ah they didn’t have such things when I was a girl [puff. . . puff].”

Eszterhazy, in mock surprise, said, “Which? Christening or sugared almonds?” The old woman cackled, smacked skinny hand on skinny knee.

The lucifer had begun to burn more and not less brightly, and he felt obliged to dismount and stamp it out. And stayed where he was, looking.

“Ah, that’s all that scurf from across the Little River,” the old woman said. “First there come all that sawdust. Then come all that coal-dust.

The current wash them here, when the seas’nal tides was high. The both of them has sort of conglobulate together and dried out and a body has to be certain careful where she drop or dump a bucket o’ hot ashes or that scurf will start blazin; ah they didn’t have none ’f them things when / was a girl but now I’m just a old woman with the affliction in both legs [puff], and I can’t do nothin about anythin [puff].”

Eszterhazy said that he would see to it that the rubbish was cleared away. But he set no date to it. And the two cantered on. And as the two cantered on, the European asked a question and the American delivered an answer. “ ‘What do I think —?’ Why, I believe old Burgenblitz is not such a bad old son of a bitch for such a bad old son of a bitch as he is, you know, Elmer. Trouble is, he is bored! He’s tired! Bein a European-style, country gentleman bores him! Pokin fat pigs, feedin fat cattle, ballroom dancin, opry, why he’s done it all, he is bored with it. He is tired of your make-buhlieve hunts, they air all fakes, Elmer — peasants drivin pheasants in front of where he stands a-shootin of them, servants loadin his guns for him, servants countin up his kills for him — why they ain’t no good wars he could jine up into right now — folks want to go to Jerusalem they don’t go on a Crusade, they go on a Cook’s Tour — he can’t read no books for pleasure....So whut’s left for him to do but to dig in his heels and say, ‘Nobuddy tells me whut t’do!’ Jest like some old Florida Cracker.”

Much would “Elmer” have wished to ask him more about the Old Florida Crackers ... from “Old” Florida? and what did they crack, corn?

. . . but it was at that moment that everything changed; it was at that moment that he encountered De Bly, the Civil Provost of the Capital and ex officio a member of the Privy Council; De Bly was riding his dun gelding and riding him hard, Eszterhazy could not quite make out where, exactly, De Bly was going: and perhaps De Bly at that moment could not have made it out either. And De Bly looked like doom.

He hailed him. The man looked up, mouth open, chops sagging, began a gesture, let his hand fall, made as if to ride on: stopped, suddenly, waved the younger man to come on. Began to talk while they were still not face to face. “They tell me that you are a Doctor-Philosopher now, Eszterhazy, I don’t know what that means, but I know you performed well in the Illyrian Campaign, and I know you did something quick and clever in the matter of that Northish King who came here incognito. Oh you better do something quick and clever right now, I don’t know what it may be, but damned quick —” And then he told him what he had heard at the session of the Privy Council.

Eszterhazy listened, quite without joy.

Then De Bly went his wild, bewildered way, and left Eszterhazy to go his. Who, as he proceeded back towards the heart of the city, translated for his companion. Who thoughtfully said, “Sort of like .. .oh ... sort of

like, say, Hayti and Santo Domingo tryin to carve up northern Mexico between them. Would we like that? No we wouldn’t.” But Eszterhazy had nothing to say to such a comparison.

And Eszterhazy had nothing to say when he heard Pard say, “How, Burgey. You old galoot.” For a moment. He heard a wordless murmur. There, wearing the undress uniform of an officer of Imperial Jaegers, was Burgenblitz. He looked rather tired; and he looked at Eszterhazy, for all that he had recently been his guest, with the same wary indifference with which he looked at most people when he did not look at them with anger. A spark blazed hotly in the younger man’s head. He raised his left hand as though, it being his right, he were about to take an oath. “Baron,” he said, “I absolutely deny that you have any authority over me whatsoever.” He of course gained instantly the Baron’s interest... if not his understanding. “I also absolutely deny that I have any authority over you whatsoever.” The Lord of Blitzenburg was not denying this denial; the Doctor of Philosophy and aspiring doctor of science went on, briskly but not hastily, speaking with clear pronunciation but avoiding any special emphasis of words; “Therefore not as one claiming authority and not as one designating or yielding authority, but simply as one member of the Order of St. Cyril to another, I do ask this of you: that you, acting upon the rank of special constable inherent in your own noble rank, take charge of the field called the Old Fair Grounds. That you take charge of whatever supplies may be sent to it. That you enlist the help of as many soldiers or sailors whom you may need and find at liberty, as you are entitled to do anyway by virtue of your own military rank . . . you are certainly justified in treating them to beer .. . there is a crisis impending and apparently the State cannot act in time.” Eszterhazy ceased to speak.

The eyes of the Baron Burgenblitz of Blitzenburg had grown distrust­ful, then became sly, then wandered to Pard Powell, whose own glaucous glance met his . . . who nodded solemnly. Eszterhazy spoke again. “We have learned that both Graustark and Rumania may hold a demarche in the Disputed Areas in hopes of annexing the Ottoman provinces.” The Baron’s glance became absolutely opaque. “Sir,” said the Doctor, “I now request my congee." He made an informal salute.

Burgenblitz returned it. “You щау go,” he said, languidly. “And damned if I don’t flay you, slowly and alive, if this turns out a tarradid- dle.” (And doubtless he would, thought Eszterhazy. Claiming a feudal privilege to do so.) The Baron was gone before the thought. Gone slowly. But he had headed his horse towards the Old Fair Grounds.

“Brunk.” Abruptly.

Brunk (aggressively): “Can prove nothing! Nothing, nothing prove!”

Doctor (calmly): “No? I can prove I know the Emergency Laws of the Year of Bonaparte better than you do.”

Brunk had been prepared to shout about the sludge in the river. Brunk was dressed as usual in a suit appropriate to an upper clerk. Along with this Brunk wore the foxskin hat of a country bailiff, a gorgeous gold watch and chain, and a pair of miner’s boots. Poor Brunk! He did not yet know who he was. Or who or what he might yet be. And, certainly, he was not yet prepared to claim wide knowledge of the Emergency LawsoftheYear of Bonaparte — that fierce and frightful Year which first pushed the Confederacy of the Lower Ister on its way towards empery — though certainly he had heard thereof. “What Law Bonaparte?" asked Brunk.

“As an emergency measure I can here and now dismount and bum your coalyard to the ground —” See Brunk’s mouth open very, very wide. “— and oh certainly I should be obliged to pay compensation.” See Brunk’s face indicating his calculation how much this could be, plus interest. “Oh of course it would be compensation at the value of the place during the Year of Bonaparte . . . what? A hundred ducats?”

“ What a hundred ducks bum my place Bonaparte?!"

“But I won’t.” Eszterhazy. Very quietly. Brunk had begun to reel a bit. Things were going too rapidly. He put out both his hands palms down at breast level. He looked rather like a rather disorganized dancing-bear.

“Now here is what you have to do. ...” Brunk, mouth a-sag, nodded silently. “You have to take a few good men with wheelbarrows. Cross the Little River. Now. Mother Wumple’s Yard. Where all the stuff has washed up and dried. You are to break it all up. Into little pieces. About the size of a common hen’s egg. Carefully. She won’t prevent you. And then you’re to have your chaps wheel it along to the Old Fair Grounds. Pile it on a couple of good large tarpaulins. Cover it with a couple of good large tarpaulins. Got that?"

Brunk had been nodding, nodding. First he lifted one foot. Then he put it down. Then he lifted the other. Then he put it down. Then he asked. “ What I must do next Boss my place Bonaparte don’t bum?” Eszterhazy thought a moment. Only a moment, though. Then, in the crisp tones of an officer who has allowed the men to take two minutes to piddle into a hedge, and Brunk would certainly still be on the SemiActive Militia Lists, the officer by his tone now indicating that it was back to Forward! MARCH!, Eszterhazy said, “Draw four times four rations upper NCO quality plus four times ten rations other ranks quality. And see that it is delivered with the rest, go!”

And Brunk, breathing heavily, muttering disconnected words . . . burn, Bonaparte, boss, rations, NCO, break, pieces, eggs ... Brunk went.

Any decade, any year or month or week now, capital in Scythia- Pannonia-Transbalkania would discover its own power. And leap, roar­ing, forward. With, right behind it, labor. And yet and meanwhile? Well. Not today.

Professor Gronk had accepted development as calmly as he had accepted stasis. Washington Parthenopius “Pard” Powell, who had been given his own emergency task to perform, had performed it. And had returned. The inventor’s loft was a-blaze with scarlet silk. “What do you mean, ‘Did I have any trouble?’ Why, harlots is the most patriotic class of people they is, irregardless of nationality or theopompous preference. Course I lied a lot. Told ’em I needed it fer to make belly-bands so the sojers wouldn’t ketch the cholera in the humid swamps of them Dispu- tated Territories or whutchewcallem. Even showed whut size to cut they red silk petticuts cuttem up to. Then I give every house one a my little flags. ’N then they all kissed muh. Well. Here we are. Do we stitch? Or do we glue?”

In the Taxed Domestic Animals Division of the Excise Office.

“What does Skimmelffenikk report from High Hyperborea?”

Chairs were thrust back. Drawers rattled. Files were slapped down. The motto of the Royal and Imperial Scythian-Pannonian-Transbalkanian Excise Office was, “If you have nothing to do, do it very loudly, so nobody will notice.”

“Here it is, Chief.”

“There it is, Chief.”

“Right over there, Chief.”

“File Number 345 slash 23 dash 456, the 11th inst. Skimmelffenikk reports from High Hyperborea. . . .”

The Chiefs round, whisker-encircled face took on a look of controlled patience. “Yes?” he enquired. “Well? So?”

Skimmelffenikk’s report from High Hyperborea had been properly received, posted, docketed, filed ... all the rest of it. However, it was rapidly becoming clear, nobody had read it. Until now. Vows were instantly (and silently) made to The Infant Jesus of Prague, All the Holy Souls, and St. Mamas Riding the Lion, that the Chief not completely blow up, declare Unpaid Overtime, fire them all, cancel the three-o’clock borsht break — None of it. The Chief read to himself without sound, the Chief read vocally in a mutter, then the Chief read altogether aloud. Skimmelffenikk reports from High Hyperborea that to the sound of like real weird music the untaxed he-goats had been dancing and prancing with like crowns of flowers on their heads.... And this statement had been signed in full by the Officer Reporting (Skimmelffenikk), attested by his Sergeant, one Grotch; and confirmed by the latter’s Rural Constable, one Mommed, who makes his Mark, said Mark being herewith identified by the District Imam with Rubric in Turkish according to the Highly Tolerant Imperial Permittzo. . . .

There was no use to look in the Rules and Schedules. Everyone knew there was nothing on the subject in the Rules and Schedules. The Chief,

with the near-genius which signifies predestined high rank, simply put the file down and went home early.

Brunk — Brunk was by the way the coal-magnate; Gronk was the inventor — Brunk had not got everything quite right. The bit about digging up the entire bed of dried mixed coal-dust and sawdust and carefully breaking it into egg-sized pieces, this he had done exactly as directed. It was the rations which had confused him, and this confusion he had passed on to Frow Brunk. Frow Brunk kept a very hearty table, and she did as she thought she was told. She emptied the smoke-house, she emptied the bake-house, she filled a wagon full of bread and cake and sausage and hams and brawns and cheeses and roasted this and pickled that. Who knew what Bonaparte might want. The five soldiers and four sailors whom Burgenblitz had in effect personally conscripted had never had such a feast since . .. since . .. well, likely, never. And the barrel of home-brewed ale which Frow Brunk had sent along caused the thin and sour beer of the corner tavern to be quite forgotten, something for which the keeper of the corner tavern was thankful, as when he had mentioned the matter of payment the Baron Burgenblitz had given him such a look that he had thought best to follow the example of that one of whom it was written, “And so he departed, not being greatly desired.”

The conscripts had of course wondered what it was all about, but of course they had not asked. True, they were technically on liberty, but they had all spent all their money anyway, and their liberty now amounted to the right to sleep on the Armory floor if they wished. The Baron instead sent them to the Armory with a note for blankets, instead. The Baron set up guard-posts; they stood guard. When the mysterious whatever-it-was arrived, the Baron ordered it put in the middle of his impromptu camp in the middle of the Old Fair Grounds. Food having arrived, he had ordered rations distributed. To be sure, there were no dishes, no utensils, no table nor even table-linen: no matter: his share was neatly served him on a fresh-laundered skivvy shirt from a sailor’s ditty-bag. And he ate every bit of it. And when some folk, having noticed the campfire with curiosity, came nosing around, they were promptly told to nose out.

Next morning:

First came the four fellows from the Royal and Imperial Navy, carry­ing what appeared to be a New England whaleboat, saving only that New England whaleboats are seldom if ever wo ven out of wicker-work. Almost immediately after that two soldiers came drawing a gun carriage, and riding on the limber and smoking a pipe and wearing his best ask-me-no- questions look was Baron Burgenblitz. How had he obtained the gun carriage? If you were an artilleryman alone on duty at the Armory and Baron Burgenblitz appeared at five in the morning saying merely the two

words, “Gun carriage,” would you not have let him have it, being merely thankful he did not also say, “Gun-horses,” as well? Hah. On the carriage was something covered over with oiled cloth. An expert on the subject might have conjectured that under the cover was a steam engine. A very small steam engine. And as to its being on a gun carriage, this may in fact have been co-source of rumors which long subsequently vexed Graustark and Ruritania, to the effect that “S-P-T has got steam-cannon! Oh God!”

— a few other vehicles followed.

There was no established drill for what came next. Out of the wicker­work “boat” was produced a pile of bright red silk... well, bright red silk what? the sailors might have wondered . . . but theirs not to reason why, theirs only to fix the what? in places ordered by a suddenly in-the-here- and-now Professor Gronk. There were a number of sections of wicker framework. There were cries of, “Belay that rope! Smartly now! Five marlin hitches on the larboard side! A bowline on a bight, I say! Rouse up, rouse up, a bowline on a bight there!’’and so on. Before the eyes of those who did not pass the fence around the Old Fair Grounds something rather like the ghost of an immense sausage — also made of wicker

— gradually took form. Bright red masses hung in place. A murmur came from beyond the fence, then cries, then shouts. The cover was removed from the gun carriage, a flat trough of thin wood was hoisted aboard and promptly filled with sand from the ground and a thin metal plate placed in it, and what was now sure enough affirmed to be a small steam engine was lifted by many strong hands and set on the plate. And the Professor was everywhere, setting in place struts, screws, braces, all thin, all light, all strong, all long prepared — he filled the boiler and stacked jugs of water fore and aft —

And now a number of pasteboard containers were opened by order of Dr. Eszterhazy and given here a snap and there a slap, and one by one were filled with the curious black objects from under the tarpaulins. What were they? Professor Gronk, dreamer or not, had sometimes a way of getting to the heart of things. “What are they?” he asked.

Eszterhazy, the wind riffling the short beard which had grown a trifle darker in recent years, said, “This is that new fuel of which I spoke. It is composed of the waste-dust of very soft coal mixed with sawdust of, I should estimate, pine, with of course some residue of resin which acts as both a binding agent and an inflammatory ... as a sort of phlogiston, to apply a rather passe term ... the whole lavaged with the water of the lower Little Ister, and what semi-solids that might contain awaits further analysis. I have had this fuel-substance cut up into small pieces so as to make easier such finer adjustments of the flame as —”

“Get it up,” said Gronk, shortly. His pop-eyes darted here and there, rather like those of a chameleon keeping a sharp eye out for the cat. The boxes of fuel were gotten up, the engine was by now fastened in its place,

whence, one hoped, any sparks would fall harmlessly into the sand, and a lucifer struck to the first piece of fuel; a briquette it might perhaps be called; perhaps not. It glowed and continued glowing even after the match burned out. It was blown upon. More was added. In a few moments a small fire burned in the grate beneath the engine’s boiler. The arrangements above the engine were complex. From the catchment above it led a number of sleeves and each sleeve terminated in one of the drooping masses of red silk. . . .

And now was displayed one of the true beauties of the Autogondola- Invention, for the fuel was made to do double duty: the same heat which turned the water into steam also filled with heated air the bellies of what were gradually discerned to be five beautiful, big balloons — five they were in number, but the wicker-work frame lashed together according to its inventor’s directions held all five cohesively as though they had been one. The wicker boat lashed beneath began slightly to tremble.

And then two voices were heard, one of them familiar to the Doctor. “Bon jour! Bon jour!” this one cried, in a strong accent not French. “Thee spear-eats say'ed me, ‘Ascend! These morning you shall Ascend!' Who knowed what eat mins, ‘Ascend’? So I comb over wheeth Jawnny to find out. These ease Jawnny. Bon jour! Bon jour!” Katinka Ivanovna wore an outfit of brilliant-bright-orange, and a beaming smile, as she climbed into the “boat” and looked eagerly around. Her blue eyes sparkled. Whatever the spirits had meant, it evidently contained none of the gloom of the Road to En-Dor.

Climbing in right after her was a fine large glossy animal of a man, with astrakhan lapels on his surtout, a long thick sleek moustache, and an atmosphere of the very best hair-oil: this, presumably, was Jawnny. “Buon giorno! Buon giorno! Gian-Giacomo Pagliacci-Espresso; allow me to present you a cold fiasco my very best produced Italian sparkle-wine, tipo di champagne, you will prodigiously delight; maron! And achi also some bearskin lap-robe, plus here an entirety of one case of such my wine, I bottle in Bologna, next my sausage-factory, brrr!”

Dr. Eszterhazy looked a bit doubtful as the signor helped place the case in the center of the ’Gondola, but Professor Bronk, with a quick apprais­ing glance, said, very briefly, “Ballast.” And returned in controlled frenzy to fastening wires and aerolines, and to spreading out maps and examining various pieces of scientific equipment. “Laaaa . . .’ sang Mme. Dombrovski, hand on bosom. She waved to what was now a large crowd straining at the fence; the crowd waved back and cheered.

Another figure moved slightly. “Well, Baron Burgenblitz ... do you come along?” asked Eszterhazy.

“Try to prevent me! — try. In regard to the source material of your pretty red balloons, my patronage has supplied much of it.” The Baron settled himself into a pair of the bearskin lap-robes, one of which he slung over his shoulders, applied his pipe to his tobacco-pouch, and growled.

It was at this moment that Sgr. Gian-Giacomo Pagliacci-Espresso, glancing around, said, with a slightly nervous tremor, “Pray inform the sailors be careful with ropes, else this ... this cosa ... might accidentally go,” his eyes rolled, he seemed suddenly to obtain a better grasp of situation, “UP!” He leaped over the side, and from the terra firma reached forMme. Dombrovski; but the abrupt loss of his weight, plus the greatly increased swelling of the red silk balloons, caused the Autogondola-Invention to strain against the lines held by the sailors, who — taking his last exclamation as a signal — stepped back smartly and released them. From inside came cries of annoyance, perhaps alarm, but these ceased abruptly. There was much else to do.

. The splendid scarlet Autogondola-Invention went soaring up into the misty heavens. Gronk, at the scientific instruments, called out courses, Eszterhazy plied the wheel which controlled the tail- and wing-vanes, Pard Powell from time to time stuck his finger in his mouth and held it up to test the breeze, from time to time suggesting slight changes in direction so as to take best advantage of prevailing winds; the engine, as engines will, went choog-choog, chuff-chuff;[1] and Katinka Ivanovna, waving the tri-national flag, holding now on to one rope and now another, semi-incessantly sang out, “Onward, great-glorious-successful Scythia- Pannonia-Transbalkania, hairess to thee future weesdom of the ages!” From time to time she avoided hoarseness by sipping from a fiasco of the produce of Sgr. Pagliacci-Espresso’s winery; and, now and then, with a merry gesture, she shared it with the others; when it or its successors was empty she tossed it negligently aside... on one occasion so much so that it went clear over the side, and, hurtling through the clouds, picked up impetus enough to pierce the surface of a certain farm-field known for its dryness, where at once and in the presence of the farmer and his farm-boy a fountain spurted. A hundred years later people were still dipping hankies into it in the belief that it cured warts.

For long periods they flew through clouds and all was grey, then for long periods the skies cleared and down below they saw the land as though cut out of scraps of velvet by some elven artist, fields of vari-colored crops green and greener and yellow and red; here and there a toy-town and its fairy towers. Now and then they were above the clouds and looked down upon fleecy layers towards which, almost, it seemed they might descend and walk upon.

It was at one such moment that Burgenblitz of Blitzenburg said, “We are nearer to Heaven than we were.”

Washington Parthenopius Pard Powell silently handed over the peace pipe. The Baron silently took it.

The Conjoint Chiefs of Staff of the Combined Ruritanian-Graustarker Manoeuvres Near or In The Authorized Areas (Authorized sounded ever so much nicer — and safer — than Disputed), the Margrave GrauHeim and the Prince Rupert-Michael, were feeling very pleased with each other. There had been no sign of a sign from Scythia-Pannonia- Transbalkania, no sign was really to be expected from Turkey (the Sick Man of Europe was still very sick; Abdul Hamid’s method of preparing himself for the throne was to take courses in mathematics, marksman­ship, and magic), and God was in Heaven and the Czar was far away. The Conjoint Chiefs stood at a table looking at a map which a century (and then some) of boundary rectifications has rendered unrecognizable; but as they did not know this, they continued feeling very pleased. The CCs’ uniforms had been ordered from the best military (or perhaps theatrical) tailors in Potsdam; with pickelhaube helmets, long overcoats which belted almost under the armpits and reached almost to the insteps, boots with huge spurs, heads shaven, and long goatees and long moustaches upturned, they looked frightful indeed: and when they considered this, they felt even more pleased. The cookfires had been lit and appeared very welcome, too, what with the evening dews and damps. It was then that the two CCs began to look around; so did the soldiers. “Odd sound,” said the Margrave. “Sounds like what they call a locomotive engine; heard one once,” said the Prince. Both together they said, “None here.” Indeed there was not, and as there were yet none in either Graustark or Ruritania either, hardly any of the soldiers had ever seen or heard one. But the strange noise still persisted, like the transpirations or suspirations of an alien creature; then the mists parted, the troops gave a great shuddering cry, and the great setting sun bathed with its dull rosy rays the . . . the what? There it was! . . . but what was it?

Answer was immediate. A young but zealous and excitable cavalry- corporal cried, “It be the Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun,” possibly a reference to Katinka Ivanovna in her orange outfit of satin and gauze; “Armageddon! The saints be casting down their crowns a-nigh the glassy sea; re-PENT!” And, casting down his brimless cap, he commenced beating his brow ritually and rhythmically with his fist as he chanted an immensely long Recital of Remorse, ranging from Assembling to Commit Fornication with Two Other Stable-boys and a Tavern Wench; down to Zedoary, a Great Quantity of Which I Snitched From an Apothecary to Buy Booze.

Pandemonium in the ranks.

Bearing down at them from an altitude as yet unestimated was A Thing, hideous beyond belief, something like (were it possible) an immense aerial insect, although with more body sections than any insect could possibly have, or had it? was that its giant thorax moving in and out? was it merely the wind? were those things jutting out here and there wings?

Or were — could they be —fins? Was this all some dreadful dream in the declining day? Was that a Scythian-Pannonian-Transbalkanian flag? Oh Hell and Purgation yes it was! — also a perfectly dreadful voice from the heavens barked orders at them and as they milled around in confusion and in terror, The Thing swooped and swerved and darted and hissed at them with its scalding breath —

Military marksmanship had nowhere included shooting at a' steam- propelled Autogondola way up in the middle of the sky, nor had anyone been trained to fire at a 35-foot long bird; and though Margrave Grau- heim was an excellent stag-hunter, he had never had occasion to hunt a giant stag 100 feet above him: who had?

“Halt!" cried that dreadful voice from the heavens. “Halt! Fall in! Stack arms! Officers, prepare to surrender your swords at an oblique angle! Thrusting the right foot one foot forward and taking hold of the right trouser-leg with the right hand: Ex-pose... HOSE! Sergeants of the 3rd Graustark Chasseurs, take the names of those officers wearing green striped stockings, daresay they patronize the same haberdasher in Port Said, what do you mean by wearing green striped stockings at a formal surrender, you dumb sons of bitches!” There was no disobeying that dreadful voice in the sky, and when a battalion of Ruritanian Regulars attempted to sneak away, the Autogondola sailed along their line of cook-fires {lovely up-drafts!) and dropped what were really not howitzer shells but boxes of Brunk-stuff right into the fires; the confected fuel at once pulverized and exploded, sending hot pilaff flying just about every­where; also the Prince Rupert-Michael was almost struck by an aerial grenade which very oddly left his coat smelling like a rather low-grade champagne; funny.

It was with a complete mixture of humiliation, fear, and relief that they heard themselves being let off with a mere fine for “Having Entered into the Disputed Areas Without the Conjoint Consents of the Emperor, the Sultan, the Woywode of Western Wallachia and the Grand Mameluke of Neo-Macedonia, to the Great Affront of All of Them”; the fine being, well, never mind what the fine being, and officers of flag rank were ordered to take it in large bills from the Pay Chests and drop it into the basket now descending to eye-level; no sooner was the basket filled than it was zipped up out of sight again and a voice with a strong American accent was heard counting its contents.

The implacable Voice from above now announced that torches be lit and that all Ruritanian troops at once march for Graustark and all Graustarker troops march at once for Rumania: they marched. Long after the huffing-puffing creature had ceased to snuffle and hiss back and forth checking on them, breathing redly in the dark, they kept on marching. They didn’t dare not.

The Autogondola descended to take on water and conserve fuel by

resting in the deserted camp for the night.

The World Tribunal has long been occupied with the cases of Grau- stark vs. Ruritania and Rumania vs. Graustark.

Meanwhile, back at the Palace:

Ignats Louis, Emperor of, etc., etc., was gloomily taking his post­breakfast walk in the Gardens when a figure detached itself from a rake, and, bowing, asked permission to speak. Granted. “Guess what I seen this mornin a-comin to work, Your Imperialness?” “Tell me, Genorf. We know you wouldn’t lie . . . not to We, anyway.”

Genorf, I. Pal. Gard. Rakeman, Upper Div., said that in coming to work that morning he passed close by the Old Fair Grounds at usual and was surprised to see there on dry ground a boat like with red sails like. And then come along this red-haired woman Gazinka Somethingovna, what they say she’s a witch and in she got to the boat and with no more about it off sailed the boat only it like sailed up ... in the very general direction of Wallachia or Macedonia or Graustark maybe or Ruritania rather: and might she lay a curse on all them foreign folk and drive their he-goats mad. Or worse. “. . . Apology to Your Presence, Sire . . . But, now, what might you think? About such witchery . . . ?”

His Royal and Imperial Presence thought about it, stroking his bifur­cate beard right-side, left-side. Then he said, “Well, We’ll tell you, Genorf. Them country witches such as they had when We was a boy, they was good enough to dry up cows or cure the clap, but nowadays things keep getting more modern and we must move with the times.” And as a reward for the information, he was Graciously Pleased to direct that Genorf be given a large bowl of suet dumplings plus six and a third skillings plus a big glass of shnops. “And to make certain it be good shnops, come, We'll have one with thee; come to think of it, all of ye have one with We,” Ignats Louis sometimes had difficulty with his pronouns; “and if the Frow High Housekeep’ don’t like the smell, tell her to hold her nose as she drinks it: Graustark and Ruritania, oh haw haw! We can’t wait to hear!”

Avar-Ister, Second Capital of the Triune Monarchy (there really was no “Third Capital”), had gone to bed in a rather ugly mood. Not only were traces of some awful bad gunk coming down the Ister from the general direction of the First Capital, but the Post Office had just gotten a new issue three-pennikk stamp (one and one-half pennikks being equal to two-thirds of a copperka, except . . . but we had perhaps leave that for now) of which the Avar legend lacked a Silent Letter... the incomparable richness of the Avar idiom containing many silent letters. Avar National- ites at once revived the traditional cry of, “Are we going to stand for

this?” with its terrifying reply of “Nudgeszemeldinkelfrasz!” or (in Avar) No. Tom-toms did not precisely beat all night, but — Shortly after sunrise, well, to be perhaps needlessly blunt, conveniently after break­fast, a concourse of Avar Patriotic Intransigents began to move grimly along the Korszo towards the Viceroy’s Castle: when, suddenly from behind a cloud was heard an Angel’s Voice singing the Pannonian National Anthem. Not realizing that it was actually the voice of Katinka Ivanovna Dombrovski — she had learned it in Zagreb one bleak winter from an Avar exile who, whenever she slacked learning it, pinched her, severely — the Avars naturally stopped dead. And stood at full attention, only turning their heads to watch the Autogondola-Invention fly the full length of the Korszo from east to west, joining in the singing of the first 35 verses; then, the Autogondola-Invention having unaccountably gone into reverse, turning their heads to watch it fly the full length of the Korszo from west to east backwards, joining in the singing of the second 35 verses: who was not there to hear Madame К. I. Dombrovski render the moving lines:

“Hoy, Pa-n-no-nia, hoy!

Yoy, Pa-n-no-ni-a, yoy!

O-oy, Pa-n-no-ni-a, oy!”

in full coloratura, has not heard anything.

But must not all things come to an end? Yes.

It was whilst prolonging the final, poignant, patriotic, oy that the voice of Katerina Ivanovna went briefly hoarse... then flat... then cracked... then gave out entirely. And it was at that moment that the Autogondola- Invention suddenly went completely out of control and made what may be called, to coin a phrase, a “crash-landing,” on the top-deck of the R. and I. Lighthouse Tender Empress Anna-Gertruda, fortunately without anyone being injured . . . and with it steamed upriver towards Bella. The cheering Avars then all went back home to put hot compresses on their stiff but patriotic necks.

Who would ever know? . . . but somehow Dr. Eszterhazy, having reflected much upon it during free moments of his aerial tour, thought he now understood more of the Mystery of the Goats. There being no tax on the she-goats, there was no need to conceal them. As for the he-goats, they being needed only during breeding-season, why it was they who were herded up into the far wild pastures in the mountains in hopes of avoiding the tax-collectors — and it was evidently only there that the hallucinatory plants grew — nightshade! traditional in witches’ brew! — As for the attested reports of the strange music (surely not upon pan-pipes!?), one must simply, mentally, stamp it: unsolved. Eszterhazy

might suggest the goat-tax be reduced and its revenues equalized by, say, a fourth-pennikk tax a case on refined sugar, which peasants never used anyway, preferring honey or sorghum or brown sugar-loaf; doubtless then the he-goats would be kept down out of the danger zone. He could suggest. More than that he could not do.

Meanwhile —

Engelbert Eszterhazy, Ph. D., aspirant D. Sc., was entertaining guests. “. . . the new fuel caused a build-up which choked all the tubes eventually,” Professor Gronk was complaining. Eszterhazy said that the two of them could really call on poor old Brunk shortly and show him how to filter the sludge washed off his soft coal, and re-filter and so on until the wash-water was clear enough to let back into the river. And then they two would work out with Brunk a better formula for mixing the coal dust and sawdust and whatever into a really decent fuel...: “For stoves, anyway.” The professor made a gesture. His prominent eyes swiveled all about. “It is not alone the fuel. The design is wrong I see now. The wires snap. The aerolines flap. The framework does not stand the strain. The Autogondola-Invention does not properly take the helm. The instru­ments, yoy meinDieu the instruments: I must tell you that not only half the time we really used the wind and not the engine but half of that time the instruments proved there was no wind to use! Seemingly, it should never have flown at all! It is as though some witchcraft or magic —”

Eszterhazy stroked his moustache. He looked pensive. “The old magic and witchery is almost everywhere in retreat, Professor. Only here at almost the very edge of the European world does it ever turn and fight. Elsewhere it masks itself and tries to sneak in via the medium and the planchette, but that is not quite the same magic. Nor the same witchery. Well. Eh? ‘The Autogondola-Invention will take years more study and work?’ Well, meanwhile let us keep it quiet. It is clearly something for which the world is not yet prepared. Have you tried the sausage? It is ... there." The Professor’s floating eyes ceased to float, concentrated on the sausage. In a moment he had left his host behind.

Instantly the place was taken by Burgenblitz of Blitzenburg; never had the Doctor seen the Baron so voluble. “The castle is doomed, Eszterhazy; the day of the fortress in the forest is over; this little adventure has shown me that anyone may put a motor on a balloon and float over dropping explosives anywhere, so what good’s a castle if you can’t defy the world from it? Well, I’m selling out. Yes. Giving up. Shall go hunt crocodiles in La Florida by the waters of the Tallahassee and the great Sewanee; my pal Pard has been persuaded to act as guide for the most modest of fees out of which he himself shall pay the native — what? Sioux? — to paddle us in their — what? Wigwams? — as I believe the catamaran is called in its native language; we shall go by way of London where the best crocodile- gun and mosquito-netting is made, also to purchase tomahawks, beads, and red cloth to trade with the Crackers as I believe the picturesque aboriginals are also called. . . .”

Eszterhazy’s eyes met those of Washington Parthenopius “Pard” Powell, who let his own eyelids slip to half-mast and drew a puff on his calumet. To have the Baron Burgenblitz actually out of the country for even whatever length of time was a gift of fortune hardly to have been looked for. “Ah Burgenblitz how I envy you,” he said. “The castle- fortress. Indeed. Doomed.” It had, like the walled city, indeed been doomed: since 1453; Burgenblitz was a slow learner. “Hm, crocodiles. Florida, hm. You will not of course wish to hunt the great saurian all the time. You would be bored. Fortunately in La Florida there is the legendary life of the planter to occupy and amuse you as well. I believe I have read a report that the soil there is excellent for the possible cultivation of the Comparatively Thin-Skinned Yellow-Green Juice Orange, of which cuttings are said to be available at the Botanical Gardens in Kew; pray mention my name to Mr. Motherthwaite, the Curator for Juicy Fruit. Ah. La Florida! You will buy lands there, eh?”

Burgenblitz, who had never once considered doing so, now cried, “But yes of course I shall! That is ... I hope . . .” he turned to his pal, Pard, "... will the picturesque aboriginal Crackers trade land for red cloth?” His pal Pard once more gave Eszterhazy a glance from his glaucous eyes. “Be tickled pink to trade it for most anything,” said he. “Money, marbles, or chalk.”

Burgenblitz drew out his pocketbook to make a note. “The money is no problem,” he said. “As for the marbles, we shall pick up some at Carrara, and I am sure that at Dover we shall be able to procure chalk.” As the two of them walked off, deep in talk, Pard Powell was heard to say that when he was in Honduras with William Walker, treacherously executed to death by the people he had come to liberate, William Walker was often heard to say that any man could plant wheat and shoot birds but more than anyone was to be admired a man who could plant orange trees and shoot crocodiles.

The gaslight hissed. There, suddenly, laughing at him, was Madame Dombrovski. A sudden retrospective vision of her clinging now to one rope aloft, now another: had he seen her fingers moving deftly, swiftly, through the ropes’ ends? .. . and if so why? Why .. . seemingly, it should never have flown at all! “Ah, Katinka Ivanovna. Tell me. Are you really Russian? Polish? Or —”

“ ‘Rilly’? Rilly, I am Rahshian Feen. Often corned famous Lonnrot to my Grandfather house in Karelia, collecting kalevala; why ease eat you ask?”

He tweaked his nose. “Oh... No particular .. .Tell me. Have you ever heard it said that many ’Russian Finns’ are witches and warlocks? That they are said to be able to raise and direct the wind by tying knots in ropes, or even by singing . . . ?” But merely she looked at him, her blue eyes merry and bright. Then she laughed, and, laughing, moved on. Move on. As host, he, too, must ... In the group nearest-by were several of the young liberals, intellectuals and sceptics. What were they talking about? Not, certainly, about the price of hog-lard, still staying calm and steady at 17 ducats, seven skillings the hundredweight — at home, that is; it was reported to have reached such astronomical proportions in Siberia owing to an outbreak of hog-cholera that the peasants were obliged to eat butter.

“No, no,” said one, shaking his head. “The hope of education as an adjunct to popularism is a vain one. Why, only now, even now, stories appear that the bulls in Transbalkania are no longer savage and have been seen and heard dancing to strange piping music with wreaths and gar­lands round their necks! Peasants who believe such stories are not yet ready to vote. No no.”

And said another, adjusting his pomaded moustache, “Yes, and the papers encourage that sort of thing. Look, here in today’s evening paper, Report from the Rural Districts, listen to this, it’s being said that a country girl near Poposhki-Georgiou saw a bull with a wreath of flowers round its neck and she climbed up to get it and then the bull ran off with her still clinging to its back. . . .”

“Silly girl!”

“What was her name; it wasn’t Europa I suppose?”

“No it wasn’t; what kind of a name is that; it certainly isn’t good Scythian Gothic, what?”

The one with the newspaper gave it a second look. Said, “Olga.”

“Olga?”

“See right here in the paper: Olga. Here.”

“Zeus and Olga? Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as —”

His friend shrugged. “Oh well. Other times, other mirrors.”

Eszterhazy felt he liked this, came closer.

“What chap was it who said, nature always holds up the same mirror, but sometimes she changes the reflections?”

The other sipped from his glass of bullblood wine while he considered. “Don’t know who said it. You’re sure somebody said it? Well, it’s either very profound or very silly.”

They sipped and talked as they moved on to the quaint buffet; this fellow the Doctor their host, was he carrying his Love of the People too far? ... head-cheese, sausage, now, really! — And then suddenly a hand was held up for silence. “Oh listen! You can hear the bell of the ten o’clock tram down the road, last one till five tomorrow morning, best hurry! Be hard to find a cab if we miss the tram.” Even in Bella, sophistication too had its pains and costs.

Down in the street. “Thank you, Doctor Eszterhazy! Oh it was indeed a pleasure, Doctor Eszterhazy! Good night! Good night! Engelbert! ’Night, Engli. . . !”

For some while he remained there, simply enjoying the mist around the lamplights; suddenly a commotion, there on the next corner was someone shouting and waving his hands and screaming for a fiacre. It was Signor Gian-Giacomo Pagliacci-Espresso. “The Central Station! At once! A fiacre-cab! Pronto!” Would one stop for him, no, one would not, very odd considering the local libel that fiacre drivers “would drive the Devil to mass for a ducat,” was this surprising? Considering that in one waving hand the wealthy wine-bottler held a stiletto and in the other a pistol, perhaps not.

Then, too, it was late.

On recognizing Eszterhazy, the man shouted, “Katinka Ivanovna, that slut, that buta, she has left me, she has eloped either with Baron Burgen- blitz or the Far-vestem Yankee poet Pard, I do not know which —”

To himself, Eszterhazy murmured, “Perhaps both;” but aloud he spoke so sympathetically he persuaded the man to replace the weaponry of vengeance and to come up to Eszterhazy’s chambers for a soothing drnk, instead. Sobbing softly into his astrakhan coat-lapels, he agreed.

And so, by and by, once again all was quiet in front of the hotel in the little square at the bottom of the Street of the Defeat of Bonaparte (commonly called Bonaparte Street).

And overhead shone the glittering stars.