happened that he knew a good deal about Fessenden Abbott; not only through the intimacy of Alexandra with his daughter, nor yet through an acquaintance of long standing with Mr. Abbott--for whom he had a very considerable respect--but because of the young man’s menacing exploit in South America, his establishment of certain and apparently impregnable industries in Europe, and his reputation as a manipulator of men. No doubt he was the only man in his raw country who would have dared so far as to love a princess of royal blood, much less have had the incomprehensible audacity to bargain for her hand; but of all men in any objectionable republic whatsoever, the Emperor-King knew of no one to whom under severest stress he would longer hesitate to give any sort of recognition. He was aware of young Abbott’s principles and theories; they had been hammered into his smarting ears by the only one of his children who had been dowered to the full with the haughty and intolerant spirit of her race; and he looked upon him as a menace to the best that was left in the world. The wealth of these two men appalled him, albeit he was the richest monarch in Europe; and as he listened once more to the description of the incredible inventions and their certainties, he found himself staring at the little old man in the chair and the vigorous restless young man standing by the window much as a half-dazed man watches the approach of a land cyclone, whirling houses, people, and trees in its funnel. He had been astounded that one of his generals, whom he had sent to Berlin to witness the experiments, had returned convinced, and advocating war; and he had been still more astonished and upset when, in the formal consultation which at the insistence of the German Emperor he had held with his cabinets, he found that to a man they were for accepting the offer of the American. During the past week his ears had rung to no tune but the glorious finish of his reign, the inestimable service he had it in his power to bestow upon Christianity and Europe, the sure future of his Dual Monarchy--which the intoxicating knowledge of its greatness would solidify. The only thing they had stumbled over was the condition; for the Emperor was no more conservative than his aristocracy, and the idea of allying the most exclusive monarchy in the world with the most blatant and dangerous of republics, that moreover which had recently whipped one of the ancient states of Europe, was a huge pill for them to swallow. Had it not been that they all felt that Europe would be well rid of this particular princess--even Königsegg, with this alternative--it is doubtful if, no matter what their reason for approving this projected war, they would have opened their batteries upon the Emperor But as it was, the old sovereign, who had permitted these many years his advisers to do so much of his thinking had an irritated subconsciousness of being trapped, and hardly realized yet that he had actually gone so far