king of the tribe. The baron was the latest of an old Bavarian line,
famous in story. One of his ancestors was eagle-bearer to Cæsar after
the defeat of Hermann. The continuators had always been near the
emperors. There might be a drop of imperial blood in the child who had
so strangely degenerated as to prefer royalty on the stage to that of
the court and country-house.

"She may be good-looking," thought Claudius, "for I have noticed that
where the men are uncomely the women are often the reverse. A Berlin
professor has boldly likened the male Bavarian to the gorilla and the
caricaturists have taken his cue. They are of the beer-barrel shape,
coarse, rough, quarrelsome and quick to enter into a fight. It is the
national dish of roast goose--a pugnacious bird--and bread of oatmeal
that does it. They may well have one beauty of the sex among them. And
the carnation on the cheeks of these waitresses is so remarkable that
they find rouge superfluous. They are dull, and yet the twinkle in their
eyes indicates cunning."

Before him, the next seat was occupied by two gentlemen. They spoke in
French, thinking no one would comprehend their conversation. They were
discussing the ascending star, about which one had a deeper knowledge
than the subjects of Baboushka.

"She is the cause of the disgrace of the Grand-Chamberlain of a northern
kingdom," said this well-informed man. "He has been obliged to send in
his grand cross of the Royal Order and his rank in the Holy Empire,
after what was almost a revolution in the palace. He is a man over
sixty, who was in Russia on an important mission, when he met by chance
this young girl, whose mother was married to a noble, although the elder
sister of one of those beauties notorious for their depravity in Paris.