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Now, this is a story of a woman who looked around, and of a man who did not keep his appointment on time; out of a grain of sand, a mountain. Of course there might have been other causes, but with these I'm not familiar. This Duchy of Barscheit is worth looking into.
On leaving college he went in for medicine, and his appearance in the capital city of Barscheit was due obviously to the great medical college, famous the world over for its nerve specialists. This was Max's first adventure in the land of gutturals. I explained to him, and partly unraveled, the tangle of laws; as to the language, he spoke that, not like a native, but as one.
He was wondering if it would not be a good scheme to tell a straightforward story and ask to be returned to Barscheit. But that would probably appeal to the officer that he was a coward and was trying to lay the blame on the princess. "I do not say that I can prove it," went on the colonel; "I simply affirm that you are a German, even to the marrow." "You have the advantage of the discussion."
"You will recollect that her Highness is a princess of the blood. Seldom is she refused anything in Barscheit." She went to a small secretary and produced a certificate, duly sealed and signed. There lacked nothing but Steinbock's name. "But the rascal will boast about it! He may blackmail all of you. He may convince the public that he has really married her Highness." "I thank not.
"Permit me to doubt that," interposed the girl, smiling. Max laughed aloud, which didn't improve his difficulties any. "I have asked you who you are!" bawled the prince, his nose turning purple. "My name is Max Scharfenstein. I am an American. If you will wire the American consulate at Barscheit, you will learn that I have spoken the truth. All this is a mistake.
In America it would have been the fashion; but in the capital of Barscheit the women ate in the restaurant above, which was attached to the hotel, and depended upon the Volksgarten band for their evening's diversion. You had to order your table hours ahead that is, if you were a civilian. If you were lucky enough to be an officer, you were privileged to take any vacant chair you saw.
The citizen of Barscheit was hemmed in by a set of laws which had their birth in the dark dungeons of the Inquisition. They congealed the blood of a man born and bred in a commercial country. If you broke a law, you were relentlessly punished; there was no mercy. In America we make laws and then hide them in dull-looking volumes which the public have neither the time nor the inclination to read.
I remember doing some side-stepping myself, and I was a diplomat, supposed to be immune from the rank discourtesies of the military. But that was early in my career. In a year not so remote as not to be readily recalled, the United States packed me off to Barscheit because I had an uncle who was a senator.
It wasn't so terrible to wear men's clothes, and, besides, they were very comfortable for riding a horse; and as for riding a bicycle in the public streets, hadn't that ugly Italian duchess ridden through the streets of Rome, and in knickerbockers, too? Nobody seemed to mind it there. But in Barscheit it had been little short of a crime.
I could likewise tell you how the ancient dukes of Barscheit fought off the insidious flattery of Napoleon, only it is a far interest, and Barscheit is simply a characteristic, not a name. Some day I may again seek a diplomatic mission, and what government would have for its representative a teller of tales out of school?
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