Indeed, his remark was most absolutely true--so far as it went.

While I yet spoke, Josef came and set before the King a marvellous old
wicker-covered flagon. It had lain so long in some darkened cellar that
it seemed to blink in the candlelight.

"His Highness the Duke of Strelsau bade me set this wine before the
King, when the King was weary of all other wines, and pray the King to
drink, for the love that he bears his brother."

"Well done, Black Michael!" said the King. "Out with the cork, Josef.
Hang him! Did he think I'd flinch from his bottle?"

The bottle was opened, and Josef filled the King's glass. The King
tasted it. Then, with a solemnity born of the hour and his own
condition, he looked round on us:

"Gentlemen, my friends--Rudolf, my cousin ('tis a scandalous story,
Rudolf, on my honour!), everything is yours to the half of Ruritania.
But ask me not for a single drop of this divine bottle, which I will
drink to the health of that--that sly knave, my brother, Black Michael."

And the King seized the bottle and turned it over his mouth, and drained
it and flung it from him, and laid his head on his arms on the table.

And we drank pleasant dreams to his Majesty--and that is all I remember
of the evening. Perhaps it is enough.