everything flowed in that eye and palate could desire.

No servant asked for wages, everything seemed to be there of itself, as
in fairy castles where it is enough to wish for a thing in order to have
it.

But that was not all. It was not the whole of the miracle that the table
spread itself every day of the month and the store-rooms filled
themselves with provisions. When the first of the month came round,
bank-notes instead of bills came fluttering into the house.

No worry, no disputing, no stinting of one's self to be borne with a
sigh. With an air of boredom one stuffed his pockets with greenbacks,
which were really quite superfluous in this lazy man's paradise that the
war had opened up to its vassals.

One single lowering cloud now and then streaked the shining firmament of
this wonderland and cast its shadow on the brow of His Excellency.
Sometimes his pure joy was disturbed by the thought that the fairy tale
might give way to reality and he might be awakened from the glorious
dream. It was not peace that His Excellency dreaded. He never even
thought of peace. But what if the wall so artfully constructed out of
human bodies should begin to totter some day? What if the enemy were to
penetrate all the fortifications, and discipline were to give way to
panic, and the mighty wall should dissolve into its component parts,
human beings fleeing madly to save their lives? Then the "Victor of ----,"
the almighty fairy tale king, would sink back again into the sordid
commonplace of old. He would have to eke out his existence in some
obscure corner, crowd his trophies into some modest apartment, and
content himself, like other discharged officers, with being a