‘Your Highness,’ protested the treasurer, ‘we have immediate need of every crown.’
‘I think, sir, you evade me,’ flashed the Prince; and then turning to the side-table, ‘Mr. Secretary,’ he added, ‘bring me, if you please, the treasury docket.’
Herr Grafinski became deadly pale; the Chancellor, expecting his own turn, was probably engaged in prayer; Gondremark was watching like a ponderous cat. Gotthold, on his part, looked on with wonder at his cousin; he was certainly showing spirit, but what, in such a time of gravity, was all this talk of money? and why should he waste his strength upon a personal issue?
‘I find,’ said Otto, with his finger on the docket, ‘that we have 20,000 crowns in case.’
‘That is exact, your Highness,’ replied the Baron. ‘But our liabilities, all of which are happily not liquid, amount to a far larger sum; and at the present point of time it would be morally impossible to divert a single florin. Essentially, the case is empty. We have, already presented, a large note for material of war.’
‘Material of war?’ exclaimed Otto, with an excellent assumption of surprise. ‘But if my memory serves me right, we settled these accounts in January.’
‘There have been further orders,’ the Baron
