"You don"t say so," returned Clarence. "Must have been most interesting people to meet."
"They were, your Royal Highness. Though, unfortunately, I cannot speak of my own knowledge. As your Majesties may be aware, during the short time they were spared to me I was too young to appreciate their society."
"Well, well, Count," said Queen Selina, perceiving that this was delicate ground, "it"s all very sad, but you must try not to think about it now. The Marshal tells me you give a great deal of your time to growing vegetables. How do tomatoes do with you?"
"I don"t pay any attention to tomatoes, your Majesty," he replied, with a blush that few tomatoes could have outdone. "My efforts have been chiefly directed to pumpkins. I have reared some particularly fine ones.
I am very fond of pumpkins."
"Jolly little things, ain"t they?" put in Clarence. "So playful!"
"_Are_ they?" said the Count with perfect simplicity. "I did not know that. But then I have never attempted to play with _my_ pumpkins."
"Haven"t you?" said Clarence. "Well, you get "em to play kiss-in-the-ring with you, and you"ll find out how frisky they can be!"
"I do not know anything about kissing," he confessed, "except that it is very wrong."
"Not _pumpkins_," said the Crown Prince. "There"s no harm in that! Ask the bishop!"
"I say, old girl," he remarked to Princess Edna, after their visitor had taken his departure, "what on earth induced the Mater to tell that lanky overgrown lout we should be pleased to see him any time he cared to drop in? We shall have the beggar running in and out here like a bally rabbit, you see if we don"t!"
"Not if you intend to go on insulting him, Clarence, as you did to-day at lunch," replied Edna coldly.
"Why, I was only ragging him. Who could help ragging such a champion mug as that?"
"There is more--far more--in him than you are capable of seeing, Clarence. And, even from a physical point of view, he is immeasurably your superior."
"I admit I shouldn"t have a look in with him if we were both candidates for a Freak Show," he conceded. "On the other hand, no one can say I"m gone at the knees."
"It"s a pity, Clarence, that you"re so narrow as you are!" she said.
"D"you mean round the chest or calves?" he asked. "Because I"m quite up to the average measurements."
"I meant, so insular in your prejudices. You were almost _rude_ to the poor Count. When he was our guest, too!"
"I expect," he said, "that if he"s ever our guest again, I shall be a bit _more_ insular. I can"t stick the beggar, somehow!"
CHAPTER X
THE BLONDE BEAST
The Count was not slow to take advantage of his _permis de circuler_; his coal-black horses and coach were soon a familiar spectacle in the streets of Eswareinmal, where he had discovered the delights of promiscuous shopping. He ordered a self-supplying dinner-table of the best quality--to be paid for by monthly instalments--from the Astrologer Royal, with whom he struck up a sort of friendship. Nor did he neglect to avail himself of his general invitation to the Palace, where he dropped in so frequently as almost to justify Clarence"s prediction.
Queen Selina gave him occasional hints that she had not expected him quite so often, but hints were thrown away on the Count"s ingenuous nature--he seemed to take it for granted that he was always welcome.
Princess Edna certainly never discouraged his visits. She had been struck from the first by his great stature and powerful physique, which were just what she imagined that Nietzsche"s ideal Superman would possess. It has already been mentioned that she had been attending lectures on the Nietzschean philosophy.
Those were the days--not so very long ago, though they seem remote enough now--when a certain cla.s.s of high-browed and serious persons accepted works of modern German philosophers as containing a new gospel which none who desired intellectual freedom, enlightenment, and efficiency could afford to neglect. The theories of "the Will to Power"
and of Might being equivalent to Right are already hopelessly discredited in this country by recent exhibitions of the way in which they work out in practice. But it was not so then, and Edna, who liked to feel that she was one of the elect and in the advance guard of Culture, readily imbibed as much of the Nietzschean doctrine as could be boiled down for her in a single lecture. She would not, of course, have thought of regulating her own actions on such principles, any more than, in all probability, did their author himself. But she was very anxious to see some one else do so, and the young Count seemed to have been formed by Nature for Nietzsche"s typical "Blond Beast," if he only chose to divulge his possibilities. Unfortunately, he did not seem even to suspect them; he remained quite oppressively mild and amiable. She very nearly gave him up in despair once when he timidly presented her with a pair of mittens which he had knitted for her himself. However, a day came when she saw him under a less discouraging aspect.
They were at lunch, to which he had invited himself as usual, and Ruby had asked her brother how it was that in all his hunting expeditions he had never managed to slay a dragon.
"Never saw one to slay, Kiddie," he replied. "They seem scarce about here."
The Court Chamberlain, from behind the King"s chair, took it upon himself to explain that there were no longer any dragons in existence, the few that remained having been exterminated by the late King"s orders.
"Oh!" exclaimed Ruby, "I _did_ so want to see a dragon! And now I never shall!"
"If you wish it, little Princess," said Count von Rubenfresser kindly, "you shall see mine."
"_Yours!_" cried Ruby, quite forgetting her dislike for him in her excitement. "Have you _really_ got a dragon--a real _live_ one?"
"A real live one--and almost full-grown," he replied. "My poor dear Father had a pair, but they were killed. Mine is the last of the breed.
I discovered it myself when I was a child in a cave close to the castle.
At that time it was only an egg."
"Hatch it yourself?" inquired Clarence.
"Only partially," said the young Count; "the sun did the rest." (It was perhaps as well for Daphne that she was not at the table just then.) "I begged that its life might be spared, and it was. So Tutzi and I have grown up together."
"Tootsie!" remarked Clarence _sotto voce_, "what a dashed silly-a.s.s name for a dragon!"
"And will you show us him?" asked Ruby eagerly. "Mummy, couldn"t we go to the Count"s castle and see his dragon? This afternoon?"
"I should rather like to see it myself," said her Father. "No idea there _were_ such things. What do you say to our driving back with the Count and having a look at it, eh, my love?"
"I think, Sidney," replied the Queen, "we certainly ought to do so."
So, to Ruby"s delight, the State coach was ordered to take the Royal Family to Drachenstolz, and the party set out shortly after lunch.
Clarence accompanied them on horseback, while the Count followed in his sombre vehicle. Daphne was left behind, and the Court, although invited to join the party, begged with singular unanimity that they might be excused.
On arriving at the Castle the visitors were first taken over the interior, which was ill-lighted and rather depressing, after which the Count led them through a s.p.a.cious courtyard to the kitchen-garden, where the Queen deigned to compliment him on the huge size of the vegetable marrows and pumpkins that were ripening in the sun.
"If there _should_ be a Harvest Festival at the Church, Count," she said graciously, "I"m sure some of those would come in very nicely for it!"
They then pa.s.sed over a rough tract of ground towards a rocky cliff that formed part of the Castle boundary. In this cliff was a deep cavern, on one side of which was a stout staple with a chain attached, only a portion of which was visible. Here their young host stopped and gave a low whistle. Instantly there was a rattle of the chain, and the next moment all but the Count and Ruby hastily retreated as a great h.o.r.n.y head with distended nostrils and lidless eyes was protruded from the opening.
"Don"t be alarmed!" said the Count, calmly unfastening the chain and leading the creature out into the open. "Tutzi is perfectly tame, as you can see."
It may or may not have been full-grown, but it was large enough at all events to be a fairly fearful wildfowl, with its huge leathery wings, crested spine, formidable talons, and restless tail. The colour of its scales was extraordinarily rich, ranging from deepest purple and azure through vivid green to orange and pale yellow, and fully justified King Sidney in remarking--from a safe distance--that "it appeared to be in very good condition."
But there was no doubt about its tameness. It suffered Ruby, who showed no fear of it whatever, to stroke it on its plated beak, and even to scratch it behind its bristly ears, with every sign of satisfaction.
"Ruby!" shrieked the horrified Queen, "come away at _once_! I"m sure it isn"t safe to tease that dreadful thing!"
"I"m _not_ teasing him, Mummy," replied Ruby, whose eccentric _penchant_ for reptiles was now being gratified beyond her wildest dreams. "He _loves_ being tickled. Can"t you hear him purring?"