"Don't be angry with us, M. Paoli," the princess broke in, very prettily. "The King isn't frightened; no more am I. Who would think of hurting us?" The great delight of Alfonso, who is very playfully inclined, was to hoax people that did not know who he was. One day, motoring into Cambo, the delicious village near which M. Edmond Rostand's property lies, he entered the post-office to send off some postcards. Seeing the woman in charge of the office taking the air outside the door: "I beg your pardon, madame," he said, very politely. "Could you tell me if the King of Spain is expected here to-day?" "I don't know anything about it," said the little post-mistress in an off-hand way. "Don't you know him by sight?" "No." "Oh, really! They say he's very nice: not exactly handsome, but quite charming, for all that." The good lady, of course, suspected nothing; but when the King handed her his postcards, it goes without saying that she at once read the superscriptions and saw that they were addressed to the Queen Mother at San Sebastian, to the Infanta Doña Paz, to the Infanta Maria Theresa, to the prime minister. "Why, it's the King himself!" she exclaimed, quite overcome. Alfonso XIII was already far on his road. The most amusing adventure, however, was that which he had at Dax. One morning, he took it into his head to motor away to the parched and desolate country of the Landes, which stretch from Bayonne to Bordeaux. After a long and wearing drive, he decided to take the train back from Dax. Accompanied by his friend Señor Quiñones de Leon, he made for the station, where the two young men, tired out and soaked in perspiration, sat down in the refreshment-room. "Give us some lunch, please," said the King, who was ravenously hungry, to the woman at the bar. The refreshment-room, unfortunately, was very meagerly supplied. When the two travelling-companions had eaten up the sorry fare represented by a few eggs and sandwiches, which had probably been waiting more than a month for a traveller to arrive and take a fancy to them, the King, whose appetite was far from being satisfied, called the barmaid, a fat and matronly Béarnaise, with an upper lip adorned with a pair of thick moustachios. "Have you nothing else to give us?" he asked. "I have a _pâté de foie gras_, but it's very expensive," said the decent creature, whose perspicacity did not go to the length of seeing a serious customer in this famished and dusty young man. "Never mind, let's have it," said the King. The woman brought her _pâté_, which was none too fresh; but how great was her amazement when she saw the two travellers devour not only the liver, but the fat as well! The pot was emptied and scraped clean in the twinkling of an eye.