'The devil!' he cried. 'You ride a bonny mare,
friend!' And then, his curiosity being satisfied about the
essential, he turned his attention to that merely secondary matter,
his companion's face. He started. 'The Prince!' he cried,
saluting, with another yaw that came near dismounting him. 'I beg
your pardon, your Highness, not to have recognised you at once.'
The Prince was vexed out of his self-possession. 'Since you know
me,' he said, 'it is unnecessary we should ride together. I will
precede you, if you please.' And he was about to set spur to the
grey mare, when the half-drunken fellow, reaching over, laid his
hand upon the rein.
'Hark you,' he said, 'prince or no prince, that is not how one man
should conduct himself with another. What! You'll ride with me
incog. and set me talking! But if I know you, you'll preshede me,
if you please! Spy!' And the fellow, crimson with drink and
injured vanity, almost spat the word into the Prince's face.
A horrid confusion came over Otto. He perceived that he had acted
rudely, grossly presuming on his station. And perhaps a little
shiver of physical alarm mingled with his remorse, for the fellow
was very powerful and not more than half in the possession of his
senses. 'Take your hand from my rein,' he said, with a sufficient
assumption of command; and when the man, rather to his wonder, had
obeyed: 'You should understand, sir,' he added, 'that while I might
be glad to ride with you as one person of sagacity with another, and
so receive your true opinions, it would amuse me very little to hear
the empty compliments you would address to me as Prince.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55