"Good gracious!" he said, when the stranger was gone. "You don't
mean to say he was your guide? Why, that was the King, boy!"

I was never so astonished in my life and expect never to be again.
I had only known kings from Hans Christian Andersen's story books,
where they always went in coronation robes, with long train and
pages, and with gold crowns on their heads. That a king could go
around in a blue overcoat, like any other man, was a real shock to
me that I didn't get over for a while. But when I got to know more
of King Christian, I liked him all the better for it. You couldn't
help that anyhow. His people call him "the good king" with cause.
He is that.

Speaking of Hans Christian Andersen, we boys loved him as a matter
of course; for had he not told us all the beautiful stories that
made the whole background of our lives? They do that yet with me,
more than you would think. The little Christmas tree and the hare
that made it weep by jumping over it because it was so small, belong
to the things that come to stay with you always. I hear of people
nowadays who think it is not proper to tell children fairy-stories.
I am sorry for those children. I wonder what they will give them
instead. Algebra, perhaps. Nice lot of counting machines we shall
have running the century that is to come! But though we loved
Andersen, we were not above playing our pranks upon him when
occasion offered. In those days Copenhagen was girt about with
great earthen walls, and there were beautiful walks up there under
the old lindens. On moonlight nights when the smell of violets was
in the air, we would sometimes meet the poet there, walking alone.
Then we would string out irreverently in Indian file and walk up,
cap in hand, one after another, to salute him with a deeply respectful