August heard, and felt dazzled yet miserable. Two thousand gold
Bavarian ducats for his father! Why, his father would never need
to go any more to the salt-baking! And yet whether for ducats or
for florins, Hirschvogel was sold just the same, and would the
king let him stay with it?--would he?

"Oh, do! oh, please do!" he murmured, joining his little brown
weather-stained hands, and kneeling down before the young monarch,
who himself stood absorbed in painful thought, for the deception
so basely practised for the greedy sake of gain on him by a
trusted counselor was bitter to him.

He looked down on the child, and as he did so smiled once more.

"Rise up, my little man," he said, in a kind voice; "kneel only to
your God. Will I let you stay with your Hirschvogel? Yes, I will;
you shall stay at my court, and you shall be taught to be a
painter,--in oils or on porcelain as you will,--and you must grow
up worthily, and win all the laurels at our Schools of Art, and if
when you are twenty-one years old you have done well and bravely,
then I will give you your Nurnberg stove, or, if I am no more
living, then those who reign after me shall do so. And now go away
with this gentleman, and be not afraid, and you shall light a fire
every morning in Hirschvogel, but you will not need to go out and
cut the wood."

Then he smiled and stretched out his hand; the courtiers tried to
make August understand that he ought to bow and touch it with his
lips, but August could not understand that anyhow; he was too