any moment and levy their contributions upon you, yet you take it not in
the least to heart, but continue to lead a merry, luxurious life, have
balls and drinking bouts, spend a wild, heathenish life in eating,
drinking, gambling, and other wantonness, deck yourselves out like
peacocks, and those who have the least, and carry all their possessions
upon their bodies, act worst of all."

"It is desperation, your Electoral Highness, which makes the people of
Berlin so mad and wild. Well they know that they can call nothing their
own. Why should they save when the Swede comes to-day or to-morrow, and
takes from them their last possession? Therefore they prefer to squander
upon themselves in desperate merriment, rather than economize and go along
sorrowfully, to find that they have only saved for the enemy, who laughs
at their misery."

"Now, if you take it so, you might give to me also what I desire and
demand, and I would have the citizens of Berlin and Cologne to know
through you that I am not minded to abate in the least my requisitions for
the payment of the expenses of my bodyguard, and the tax for the
maintenance of my Electoral court. You must and shall pay, and in any case
it must be preferable, to your desperation, to give your last thing to
your Elector and Sovereign, rather than have it stolen and extorted from
you by the Swedes. So, there you have my decision, and be off with it and
convey it to the citizens of Berlin and Cologne. Attempt not to say
anything more now, for I will hear nothing more. You are dismissed, go
then!"

"Your Electoral Highness," the spokesman ventured to begin, "I--"

But the Elector would not allow him to proceed. He took up his silver