“I looked him up,” said Nikky modestly. “You see, it’s like this: He’s a pretty nice dog. There aren’t many dogs like him. And I thought--well, nobody can say I can’t have a dog.”
“I, myself. I dare say he has fleas, and they will get in the carpet, but--I tell you what I thought: He will be really your dog, do you see? I’ll take care of him, and keep him for you, and bring him out to walk where you can see him. Then, when they say you may have a dog, you’ve got one, already. All I have to do is to bring him to you.”
Wise Nikky, of the understanding boy’s heart. He had brought into the little Prince’s life its first real interest, something vital, living. And something of the soreness and hurt of the last few hours died in Nikky before Prince Ferdinand William Otto’s smile.
“Oh, Nikky!” was all the child said at first, and grew silent for very happiness. Then: “We can talk about him. You can tell me all the things he does, and I can send him bones, can’t I? Unless you don’t care to carry them.”
This, in passing, explains the reason why, to the eyes of astonished servants, from that day forth the Crown Prince of Livonia apparently devoured his chop, bone and all. And why Nikky resembled, at times, a well-setup, trig, and soldierly appearing charnel-house. “If I am ever arrested,” he once demurred, “and searched, Highness, I shall be consigned to a madhouse.”
Luncheon was extremely unsuccessful. His Cousin Hedwig looked as though she had been crying, and Hilda, eating her soup too fast, was sent from the table. The Crown Prince, trying to make conversation, chose Nikky as his best subject, and met an icy silence. Also, attempting to put the bone from a chicken leg in his pocket, he was discovered.
“What in the world!” exclaimed the Archduchess. “What do you want of a chicken bone?”
“Mother,” Hedwig said quietly, “it is his birthday.”
“I do not need you to remind me of that. Have I not been up since the middle of the night, for that reason?”
But she said no more, and was a trifle more agreeable during the remainder of the meal. She was just a bit uneasy before Hedwig those days. She did not like the look in her eyes.
That afternoon, attired in his uniform of the Guards, the Crown Prince received the delegation of citizens in the great audience, chamber of the Palace, a solitary little figure, standing on the red carpet before the dais at the end. Behind him, stately with velvet hangings, was the tall gilt chair which some day would be his. Afternoon sunlight, coming through the long windows along the side, shone on the prisms of the heavy chandeliers, lighted up the paintings of dead and gone kings of his line, gleamed in great mirrors and on the polished floor.