apparelled at seven o'clock: and I would have staked my right arm up to
the collar-bone on the success of the undertaking!'

'Weren't they sure to have found it out in the end, papa?' I inquired.

'I am not so certain of that,' he rejoined: 'I cannot quaff consolation
from that source. I should have been covered up after exhibition; I
should have been pronounced imperfect in my fitting-apparatus; the
sculptor would have claimed me, and I should have been enjoying the
fruits of a brave and harmless conspiracy to do honour to an illustrious
prince, while he would have been moulding and casting an indubitable
bronze statue in my image. A fig for rumours! We show ourself; we are
caught from sight; we are again on show. Now this being successfully
done, do you see, Royalty declines to listen to vulgar tattle.
Presumably, Richie, it was suspected by the Court that the margravine had
many months ago commanded the statue at her own cost, and had set her
mind on winning back the money. The wonder of it was my magnificent
resemblance to the defunct. I sat some three hours before the old
warrior's portraits in the dining-saloon of the lake-palace. Accord me
one good spell of meditation over a tolerable sketch, I warrant myself to
represent him to the life, provided that he was a personage: I incline to
stipulate for handsome as well. On my word of honour as a man and a
gentleman, I pity the margravine--my poor good Frau Feldmarschall! Now,
here, Richie,'--my father opened a side-door out of an elegant little
room into a spacious dark place, 'here is her cabinet-theatre, where we
act German and French comediettas in Spring and Autumn. I have
superintended it during the two or more years of my stay at the Court.
Humph! 'tis over.'

He abruptly closed the door. His dress belonged to the part of a Spanish