KING (aside).

Has Seckendorf, or any of the others, been talking to him?  Is he trying to please me? [Aloud.] A nice little country, that Baireuth of yours.  Soil somewhat stony, though!—­doesn’t yield your father much revenue, I dare say!

PRINCE.

We’re learning to improve the soil. [Aside.] These geographical prejudices!

KING.

Trying to improve it by the pleasure palaces your father is building?  What’s got into the man?  Puts up one gimcrack after another, as if he were Louis Quatorze—­and runs his country into debt meanwhile.  About how much debt does your country carry?

PRINCE (aside).

I don’t know that myself. [Aloud, saucily.] Ten millions.

KING.

Ten millions?

PRINCE.

More or less.

KING.

Good heavens!  Who is to pay that debt eventually?  And with such a state of things in the exchequer you’re traveling about Europe, taking money out of the country?

PRINCE.

I’m completing my education, sire.

KING.

In Versailles?  In Rheinsburg?  Well, never mind, we’ve had enough of that. [He whistles the first bars of the Dessauer March.] Tell me, you’ve taken part in those heathenish performances—­at my son’s Court, I mean?

PRINCE.

The part of a confidant, Your Majesty.

KING.

Good!  It was about these heathenish performances that I wanted to speak to you.  Prince, they tell me you are a man of taste, a man who is well acquainted with those godless Greek and Roman doings.  As it is in my mind to celebrate my daughter’s wedding with all pomp worthy of my crown—­I want to ask you—­to consult with my son—­as to how most gracefully and amusingly to entertain the Courts of Poland, Saxony, Brunswick and Mecklenburg, who will all be here for an entire week—­in a word, how we can win much honor and glory by this wedding.

PRINCE.

Wedding?  The Princess—­your daughter’s wedding?

KING.

Yes, Prince.  My artillery will furnish the salutes, and I will see to the reviews and parades my self.  But it is in the evening that our guests grow weary in Berlin—­they go to sleep in their chairs.  Beer drinking and pipe smoking is not yet to every one’s taste.  We’ll have to swim with the stream, therefore, and provide suitable amusements—­illumination, operas, allegorical presentations, and such fol-da-rol—­all about Prussia and England.

PRINCE.

England?

KING (rises).

Zounds! that ran over my tongue like a hare hurrying across the highway.  H’m—­I mean a sort of spectacle—­oh, say unicorn—­ea
gle—­eagle—­unicorn—­leopard—­intermingled—­Prussia and England—­and it must be in rhyme—­in verse, as it were.

PRINCE.

England?  This news comes with such a surprise!  The whole country,
Europe—­the world—­will wonder how England came to deserve such honor.