"Being King at all. Yes, Max, I have yet another confession to make; I meant to conceal it from you, but now I would rather that you knew. Perhaps you will think it wasn't quite fair; I intended to leave the responsibility of all this to you; and--well, it so happens that when you asked me I had determined to abdicate." Max opened his eyes. "I actually did abdicate. And then the bomb came, and that made it impossible. And so--here I still am; and that is how you got my consent!" "You abdicated?" "Yes, my boy, I really did. And if that bomb had not happened I should have been off the throne and you would have been on it. So now, Max, I am going to tell you everything." And he did, from beginning to end. And when it came to giving Max the actual proof, he got up and unlocked a drawer, and handed out of it the shard and the four films for him to look at. "Take a magnifying-glass," said the King. "The face and the raised arm are behind the palisade to the right." "I can't see them," said Max. "Very small," said the King; "a man with a dark beard." Max continued to look without result. "I can't find it," he said. "Well, look at the figures and lettering on the shard; you can see those." "No," said Max, "I can't." The King came impatiently across and took them off him. Then, as he examined them, he saw that the shard and the four films had been changed. He had his souvenir; but the incriminating evidence was gone. CHAPTER XXII A MAN OF BUSINESS I While these events of political moment were going on, Prince Hans Fritz Otto of Schnapps-Wasser had been busy planting himself in the good graces of the Princess Charlotte. They rode, they skated, they lunched, they played billiards together; and so easy did their relations to each other become that the Queen ceased to have any anxiety as to the future, and left the entire conduct of the affair to Providence. Charlotte all her life had been quick and impulsive in her decisions; her hatreds and her affections had always been precipitately bestowed, and while her conduct was seldom reasonable, her instincts were generally right. So now--when a most crucial question was coming to her for decision--for she no longer needed to be informed of the Prince's mind in the matter--she did not allow its serious character to weigh upon her spirits or make her less ready and spontaneous in the bestowal of her liking. On the contrary, if anything, it hastened her verdict of approval. "I do believe that I am going to fall in love with him!" she said to herself after an acquaintance of only twenty-four hours; and having so determined, she set forth with all speed to study "philosophically," as she phrased it, this huge healthy natural specimen which fortune had thrown in her way. "For if I don't take a philosophical view of him now," she said to herself, "I shall never be able to do it afterwards."