A trivial circumstance which lent some gaiety to the banquet in the Augarten was entirely lacking in London. It was an episode which, in itself, was worth a whole book, and recalls that so facetiously told by Voltaire. Not that it deals with a king tracked by bailiffs like the poor, ill-fated Theodore of Corsica, but with that most charming and most delightful of reigning kings, Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria. Yan’s manager had begun his collection, and had put the money of the Emperor Alexander and the King of Denmark in the silver dish he was carrying. When he got to his Bavarian majesty, Boniface’s representative boldly presented the dish, already ornamented with the six ducats in question. The excellent Maximilian carried his hand to one waistcoat pocket, then to the other, then to the pocket of his coat. The search is absolutely fruitless--pockets, fobs, receptacles are as completely empty of money as in the days when joyous Prince Max failed to find any money-lender in Paris to line those pockets with gold. It is more than probable that this king, this very model king, had emptied the contents of his purse into some hand stretched out to him, as invariably happened at Munich, where some unhappy wretches always posted themselves on his route. At any rate, a second examination of the pockets brought the unalterable conviction that his majesty of Bavaria had not a red cent upon him. Rather embarrassed by the situation, the king began to scan the whole length of the board, and caught sight of his chamberlain, the Comte Charles de Rechberg, at the very end of it. He felt sure that his embarrassment was at an end. Rechberg, who was there on his own account and for his own money, had not the remotest intention of attending upon his royal master in this kind of ‘Liberty Hall,’ and was, moreover, deeply engaged in conversation with M. de Humboldt. Rechberg had just published an important book upon Russia, which publication, he fain hoped, would give him a foremost rank among distinguished _littérateurs_, and, naturally, he was talking enthusiastically about it to the great savant. Consequently, he did not see the signals of distress from his sovereign, and equally, as a matter of course, failed to answer them. The head-waiter, meanwhile, did not budge, holding out the silver dish for the money due to him. The king kept one eye on the collector, the other on Rechberg, and his confusion gradually became such as to attract the notice of those around him. In a little while a kind of titter was running round the table like an electric spark. To give the scene a somewhat complete likeness to the royal banquet at Venice, it only wanted a few bailiff’s officers at the door, watching King Theodore. How King Maximilian would have got out of his quandary without the help of his neighbours, it would be difficult to say, for the stolid head-waiter refused to budge. A far better money-collector