“Information?  About what?  Perhaps you have given it.”

“I was questioned the other day at Fuerstenstein.  Princess Sophie was just returning from a walk and beckoned me to her to ask me a few questions.”

“The deuce she did!” muttered the prince, who saw mischief.  “And what answers did you give her?”

“‘Your grace need feel no uneasiness,’ I said, ’of living animals we have only monkeys and parrots at Rodeck, and there’s never been a snake about the place; a sea serpent was coming, but it died on the way, and the elephants broke loose before they were shipped at all, and went back to their palm groves—­so his highness told me.  As to tigers, we have two, but they are stuffed, and we’ve only the skin of a lion in the large hall, so your grace can see that no harm will come from them.’”

“No, but enough will come from your tattle,” said the prince, angrily.  “And the princess, what did she say to it all?”

“Her grace only smiled and then asked me about the women employed here at Rodeck, and if all the girls in the region were not here.  But I said,” and Stadinger threw his head back proudly, “’all the women at the castle, your grace, were engaged by me.  They are all industrious and honest; I have seen to that; but his highness ran away when he caught sight of them, and Herr Rojanow was more put out than the prince even, so the gentlemen never paid but one visit to the kitchen.’  Her grace was very kind and gracious to me, and took leave of me very well contented, I could see that.”

“And I’d be very well contented to send you to the devil, you old fool.  To spoil it all with your long tongue,” exclaimed the prince, furious now.

The old man, who thought he had done everything for the best, looked at his young master in perplexity.

“But I only told the truth, your highness.”

“But the truth’s not to be spoken at all times.”

“Oh, I did not know that.”

“Stadinger, you have a bad habit of answering back—­perhaps you also told the princess that Zena had been in the city for several weeks?”

“Yes, your highness, she asked me about my granddaughter, particularly.”

“What’s the trouble with Stadinger now?” asked Hartmut, who came out at this moment, also attired for the day’s sport, and who had caught the last few words.

“Oh, he’s been making a first class fool of himself, that’s all,” explained the exasperated prince.  The oldest servant of a princely house could not allow such an insult to pass.

“I beg your highness’s pardon.  I have not been making a fool of myself at all.”

“Perhaps you believe it is I who have been doing it?”

Stadinger looked his young master well over and then replied, discreetly: 

“I do not know, your highness—­but it might be so.”

“You’re an old bear,” cried the prince sharply.

“The whole forest knows that, your highness.”