PRINCE RICARDO. Jef

 

‘‘T don’t trust that younger one,” said Dick,
moodily ; “I don’t care for that young man.
Anyway, my father must be told; and, if you
won’t, I must.”

‘Well, I’ll tell him,” said Jaqueline. ‘‘And
now lie down till evening.”

After dinner, in the conservatory, Jaqueline
told King Prigio all about it.

His Majesty was very much moved.

‘‘ What extraordinary bad luck that family
has!” he thought. “If I had not changed the
rug, the merest accident, Prince Charles would
have dined at St. James’s to-night, and King
George in Hanover. It was the very nearest
thing!”

“This meddling with practical affairs will
never do,” he said aloud.

“Dick has had a lesson, sire,’’ said the
princess. ‘‘ He says he’ll never mix himself
up with politics again, whatever happens. And
he says he means to study all about them, for
he feels frightfully ignorant, and, above all, he
‘means to practise his fencing.”

These remarks were not part of the conver-
sation between Ricardo and Jaqueline, but she
considered that Dick meant all this, and, really,
he did.

“That is well, as far as it goes,” said the
king. ‘But, Jaqueline, about that mosquito ?”
for she had told him this part of the adventure.
“‘ That was a very convenient mosquito, though