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Produced by Duncan Harrod, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE PRINCE OF GRAUSTARK

BY

GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON

Author of "Graustark", "Beverly of Graustark," etc.

With Illustrations by
A.I. KELLER

1914

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I MR. AND MRS. BLITHERS DISCUSS MATRIMONY

II TWO COUNTRIES DISCUSS MARRIAGE

III MR. BLITHERS GOES VISITING

IV PROTECTING THE BLOOD

V PRINCE ROBIN is ASKED TO STAND UP

VI THE PRINCE AND MR. BLITHERS

VII A LETTER FROM MAUD

VIII ON BOARD THE JUPITER

IX THE PRINCE MEETS MISS GUILE

X AN HOUR ON DECK

XI THE LIEUTENANT RECEIVES ORDERS

XII THE LIEUTENANT REPORTS

XIII THE RED LETTER B

XIV THE CAT IS AWAY

XV THE MICE IN A TRAP

XVI THREE MESSAGES

XVII THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER

XVIII A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT

XIX "WHAT WILL MY PEOPLE DO"

XX LOVE IN ABEYANCE

XXI MR. BLITHERS ARRIVES IN GRAUSTARK

XXII A VISIT TO THE CASTLE

XXIII PINGARI'S

XIV JUST WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED

ILLUSTRATIONS

Her eyes were starry bright, her red lips were parted.
_Frontispiece_

"You will be her choice," said the other, without the quiver of an
eye-lash.

"I shall pray for continuous rough weather."

The dignified Ministry of Graustark sat agape.

CHAPTER I

MR. AND MRS. BLITHERS DISCUSS MATRIMONY

"My dear," said Mr. Blithers, with decision," you can't tell me."

"I know I can't," said his wife, quite as positively. She knew when
she could tell him a thing and when she couldn't.

It was quite impossible to impart information to Mr. Blithers when he
had the tips of two resolute fingers embedded in his ears. That
happened to be his customary and rather unfair method of conquering
her when an argument was going against him, not for want of logic on
his part, but because it was easier to express himself with his ears
closed than with them open. By this means he effectually shut out the
voice of opposition and had the discussion all to himself. Of course,
it would have been more convincing if he had been permitted to hear
the sound of his own eloquence; still, it was effective.

She was sure to go on talking for two or three minutes and then
subside in despair. A woman will not talk to a stone wall. Nor will
she wantonly allow an argument to die while there remains the
slightest chance of its survival. Given the same situation, a man
would get up and leave his wife sitting there with her fingers in her
ears; and, as he bolted from the room in high dudgeon, he would be
mean enough to call attention to her pig-headedness. In most cases, a
woman is content to listen to a silly argument rather than to leave
the room just because her husband elects to be childish about a
perfectly simple elucidation of the truth.

Mrs. Blithers had lived with Mr. Blithers, more or less, for twenty-
five years and she knew him like a book. He was a forceful person who
would have his own way, even though he had to put his fingers in his
ears to get it. At one period of their joint connubial agreement,
when he had succeeded in accumulating a pitiful hoard amounting to
but little more than ten millions of dollars, she concluded to live
abroad for the purpose of educating their daughter, allowing him in
the meantime to increase his fortune to something like fifty millions
without having to worry about household affairs. But she had
sojourned with him long enough, at odd times, to realise that, so
long as he lived, he would never run away from an argument--unless,
by some dreadful hook or crook, he should be so unfortunate as to be
deprived of the use of both hands. She found room to gloat, of
course, in the fact that he was obliged to stop up his ears in order
to shut out the incontrovertible.

Moreover, when he called her "my dear" instead of the customary Lou,
it was a sign of supreme obstinacy on his part and could not, by any
stretch of the imagination, be regarded as an indication of placid
affection. He always said "my dear" at the top of his voice and with
a great deal of irascibility.

Mr. William W. Blithers was a self-made man who had begun his career
by shouting lustily at a team of mules in a railway construction
camp. Other drivers had tried to improve on his vocabulary but even
the mules were able to appreciate the futility of such an ambition,
and later on, when he came to own two or three railroads, to say
nothing of a few mines and a steam yacht, his ability to drive men
was even more noteworthy than his power over the jackasses had been.
But driving mules and men was one thing, driving a wife another. What
incentive has a man, said he, when after he gets through bullying a
creature that very creature turns in and caresses him? No self-
respecting mule ever did such a thing as that, and no man would think
of it except with horror. There is absolutely no defence against a
creature who will rub your head with loving, gentle fingers after she
has worked you up to the point where you could kill her with
pleasure--or at least so said Mr. Blithers with rueful frequency.

Mr. and Mrs. Blithers had been discussing royalty. Up to the previous
week they had restricted themselves to the nobility, but as an event
of unexampled importance had transpired in the interim, they now felt
that it would be the rankest stupidity to consider any one short of a
Prince Royal in picking out a suitable husband--or, more properly
speaking, consort--for their only daughter, Maud Applegate Blithers,
aged twenty.

Mrs. Blithers long ago had convinced her husband that no ordinary
human being of the male persuasion was worthy of their daughter's
hand, and had set her heart on having nothing meaner than a Duke on
the family roll,--(Blithers alluded to it for a while as the pay-
roll)--, with the choice lying between England and Italy. At first,
Blithers, being an honest soul, insisted that a good American
gentleman was all that anybody could ask for in the way of a son-in-
law, and that when it came to a grandchild it would be perfectly
proper to christen him Duke--lots of people did!--and that was about
all that a title amounted to anyway. She met this with the retort
that Maud might marry a man named Jones, and how would Duke Jones
sound? He weakly suggested that they could christen him Marmaduke
and--but she reminded him of his oft-repeated boast that there was
nothing in the world too good for Maud and instituted a pictorial
campaign against his prejudices by painting in the most alluring
colours the picture of a ducal palace in which the name of Jones
would never be uttered except when employed in directing the fifth
footman or the third stable-boy--or perhaps a scullery maid--to do
this, that or the other thing at the behest of her Grace, the
daughter of William W. Blithers. This eventually worked on his
imagination to such an extent that he forgot his natural pride and
admitted that perhaps she was right.

But now, just as they were on the point of accepting, in lieu of a
Duke, an exceptionally promising Count, the aforesaid event conspired
to completely upset all of their plans--or notions, so to speak. It
was nothing less than the arrival in America of an eligible Prince of
the royal blood, a ruling Prince at that. As a matter of fact he had
not only arrived in America but upon the vast estate adjoining their
own in the Catskills.

Fortunately nothing definite had been arranged with the Count. Mrs.
Blithers now advised waiting a while before giving a definite answer
to his somewhat eager proposal, especially as he was reputed to have
sufficient means of his own to defend the chateau against any
immediate peril of profligacy. She counselled Mr. Blithers to notify
him that he deemed it wise to take the matter under advisement for a
couple of weeks at least, but not to commit himself to anything
positively negative.

Mr. Blithers said that he had never heard anything so beautifully
adroit as "positively negative," and directed his secretary to submit
to him without delay the draft of a tactful letter to the anxious
nobleman. They were agreed that a Prince was more to be desired than
a Count and, as long as they were actually about it, they might as
well aim high. Somewhat hazily Mr. Blithers had Inquired if it
wouldn't be worth while to consider a King, but his wife set him
straight in short order.

Peculiarly promising their hopes was the indisputable fact that the
Prince's mother had married an American, thereby establishing a
precedent behind which no constitutional obstacle could thrive, and
had lived very happily with the gentleman in spite of the critics.
Moreover, she had met him while sojourning on American soil, and that
was certainly an excellent augury for the success of the present
enterprise. What could be more fitting than that the son should
follow in the footsteps of an illustrious mother? If an American
gentleman was worthy of a princess, why not the other way about?
Certainly Maud Blithers was as full of attributes as any man in
America.

It appears that the Prince, after leisurely crossing the continent on
his way around the world, had come to the Truxton Kings for a long-
promised and much-desired visit, the duration of which depended to
some extent on his own inclinations, and not a little on the outcome
of the war-talk that affected two great European nations--Russia and
Austria. Ever since the historic war between the Balkan allies and
the Turks, in 1912 and 1913, there had been mutterings, and now the
situation had come to be admittedly precarious. Mr. Blithers was in a
position to know that the little principality over which the young
man reigned was bound to be drawn into the cataclysm, not as a
belligerent or an ally, but in the matter of a loan that
inconveniently expired within the year and which would hardly be
renewed by Russia with the prospect of vast expenditures of war
threatening her treasury. The loan undoubtedly would be called and
Graustark was not in a position to pay out of her own slender
resources, two years of famine having fallen upon the people at a
time when prosperity was most to be desired.

He was in touch with the great financial movements in all the world's
capitals, and he knew that retrenchment was the watchword. It would
be no easy matter for the little principality to negotiate a loan at
this particular time, nor was there even a slender chance that Russia
would be benevolently disposed toward her debtors, no matter how
small their obligations. They who owed would be called upon to pay,
they who petitioned would be turned away with scant courtesy. It was
the private opinion of Mr. Blithers that the young Prince and the
trusted agents who accompanied him on his journey, were in the United
States solely for the purpose of arranging a loan through sources
that could only be reached by personal appeal. But, naturally, Mr.
Blithers couldn't breathe this to a soul. Under the circumstances he
couldn't even breathe it to his wife who, he firmly believed, was
soulless.

But all this is beside the question. The young Prince of Graustark
was enjoying American hospitality, and no matter what he owed to
Russia, America owed to him its most punctillious consideration. If
Mr. Blithers was to have anything to say about the matter, it would
be for the ear of the Prince alone and not for the busybodies.

The main point is that the Prince was now rusticating within what you
might call a stone's throw of the capacious and lordly country
residence of Mr. Blithers; moreover, he was an uncommonly attractive
chap, with a laugh that was so charged with heartiness that it didn't
seem possible that he could have a drop of royal blood in his
vigorous young body. And the perfectly ridiculous part of the whole
situation was that Mr. and Mrs. King lived in a modest, vine-covered
little house that could have been lost in the servants' quarters at
Blitherwood. Especially aggravating, too, was the attitude of the
Kings. They were really nobodies, so to speak, and yet they blithely
called their royal guest "Bobby" and allowed him to fetch and carry
for their women-folk quite as if he were an ordinary whipper-snapper
up from the city to spend the week-end.

The remark with which Mr. Blithers introduces this chapter was in
response to an oft-repeated declaration made by his wife in the shade
of the red, white and blue awning of the terrace overlooking, from
its despotic heights, the modest red roof of the King villa in the
valley below. Mrs. Blithers merely had stated--but over and over
again--that money couldn't buy everything in the world, referring
directly to social eminence and indirectly to their secret ambition
to capture a Prince of the royal blood for their daughter Maud. She
had prefaced this opinion, however, with the exceedingly irritating
insinuation that Mr. Blithers was not in his right mind when he
proposed inviting the Prince to spend a few weeks at Blitherwood,
provided the young man could cut short his visit in the home of Mr.
and Mrs. King, who, he had asseverated, were not in a position to
entertain royalty as royalty was in the habit of being entertained.

Long experience had taught Mr. Blithers to read the lip and eye
language with some degree of certainty, so by watching his wife's
indignant face closely he was able to tell when she was succumbing to
reason. He was a burly, domineering person who reasoned for every one
within range of his voice, and it was only when his wife became
coldly sarcastic that he closed his ears and boomed his opinions into
her very teeth, so to say, joyfully overwhelming her with facts which
it were futile for her to attempt to deny. He was aware, quite as
much so as if he had heard the words, that she was now saying:

"Well, there is absolutely no use arguing with you, Will. Have it
your way if it pleases you."

Eying her with some uneasiness, he cautiously inserted his thumbs in
the armholes of his brocaded waistcoat, and proclaimed:

"As I said before, Lou, there isn't a foreign nobleman, from the
Emperor down, who is above grabbing a few million dollars. They're
all hard up, and what do they gain by marrying ladies of noble birth
if said ladies are the daughters of noblemen who are as hard up as
all the rest of 'em? Besides, hasn't Maud been presented at Court?
Didn't you see to that? How about that pearl necklace I gave her when
she was presented? Wasn't it the talk of the season? There wasn't a
Duke in England who didn't figure the cost of that necklace to within
a guinea or two. No girl ever had better advertising than--"

"We were speaking of Prince Robin," remarked his wife, with a slight
shudder. Mrs. Blithers came of better stock than her husband. His
gaucheries frequently set her teeth on edge. She was born in
Providence and sometimes mentioned the occurrence when particularly
desirous of squelching him, not unkindly perhaps but by way of making
him realise that their daughter had good blood in her veins. Mr.
Blithers had heard, in a round-about way, that he first saw the light
of day in Jersey City, although after he became famous Newark claimed
him. He did not bother about the matter.

"Well, he's like all the rest of them," said he, after a moment of
indecision. Something told him that he really ought to refrain from
talking about the cost of things, even in the bosom of his family. He
had heard that only vulgarians speak of their possessions. "Now,
there's no reason in the world why we shouldn't consider his offer.
He--"

"Offer?" she cried, aghast. "He has made no offer, Will. He doesn't
even know that Maud is in existence. How can you say such a thing?"

"I was merely looking ahead, that's all. My motto is 'Look Ahead.'
You know it as well as I do. Where would I be to-day if I hadn't
looked ahead and seen what was going to happen before the other
fellow had his eyes open? Will you tell me that? Where, I say? What's
more, where would I be now if I hadn't looked ahead and seen what a
marriage with the daughter of Judge Morton would mean to me in the
long run?" He felt that he had uttered a very pretty and convincing
compliment." I never made a bad bargain in my life, Lou, and it
wasn't guess-work when I married you. You, my dear old girl, you were
the solid foundation on which I--"

"I know," she said wearily; "you've said it a thousand times: 'The
foundation on which I built my temple of posterity'--yes, I know,
Will. But I am still unalterably opposed to making ourselves
ridiculous in the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. King."

"Ridiculous? I don't understand you."

"Well, you will after you think it over," she said quietly, and he
scowled in positive perplexity.

"Don't you think he'd be a good match for Maud?" he asked, after many
minutes. He felt that he had thought it over.

"Are you thinking of kidnapping him, Will?" she demanded.

"Certainly not! But all you've got to do is to say that he's the man
for Maud and I'll--I'll do the rest. That's the kind of a man I am,
Lou. You say you don't want Count What's-His-Name,--that is, you
don't want him as much as you did,--and you do say that it would be
the grandest thing in the world if Maud could be the Princess of
Grosstick--"

"Graustark, Will."

"That's what I said. Well, if you want her to be the Princess of
_THAT_, I'll see that she is, providing this fellow is a gentleman and
worthy of _her_. The only Prince I ever knew was a damned rascal, and
I'm going to be careful about this one. You remember that measly--"

"There is no question about Prince Robin," said she sharply.

"I suppose the only question is, how much will he want?"

"You mean--settlement?"

"Sure."

"Have you no romance in your soul, William Blithers?"

"I never believed in fairy stories," said he grimly. "And what's
more, I don't take any stock in cheap novels in which American heroes
go about marrying into royal families and all that sort of rot. It
isn't done, Lou. If you want to marry into a royal family you've got
to put up the coin."

"Prince Robin's mother, the poor Princess Yetive, married an American
for love, let me remind you."

"Umph! Where is this Groostock anyway?"

"'Somewhere east of the setting sun,'" she quoted. "You _must_ learn
how to pronounce it."

"I never was good at foreign languages. By the way, where is Maud
this afternoon?"

"Motoring."

He waited for additional information. It was not vouchsafed, so he
demanded somewhat fearfully:

"Who with?"

"Young Scoville."

He scowled. "He's a loafer, Lou. No good in the world. I don't like
the way you let--"

"He is of a very good family, my dear. I--"

"Is he--er--in love with her?"

"Certainly."

"Good Lord!"

"And why not? Isn't every one she meets in love with her?"

"I--I suppose so," he admitted sheepishly. His face brightened. "And
there's no reason why this Prince shouldn't fall heels over head, is
there? Well, there you are! That will make a difference in the
settlement, believe me--a difference of a couple of millions at
least, if--"

She arose abruptly. "You are positively disgusting, Will. Can't you
think of anything but--"

"Say, ain't that Maudie coming up the drive now? Sure it is! By
gracious, did you ever see anything to beat her? She's got 'em all
beat a mile when it comes to looks and style and--Oh, by the way,"
lowering his voice to a hoarse, confidential whisper, "--I wouldn't
say anything to her about the marriage just yet if I were you. I want
to look him over first."

CHAPTER II

TWO COUNTRIES DISCUSS MARRIAGE

Prince Robin of Graustark was as good-looking a chap as one would see
in a week's journey. Little would one suspect him of being the
descendant of a long and distinguished line of princes, save for the
unmistakeable though indefinable something in his eye that exacted
rather than invited the homage of his fellow man. His laugh was a
free and merry one, his spirits as effervescent as wine, his manner
blithe and boyish; yet beneath all this fair and guileless exposition
of carelessness lay the sober integrity of caste. It looked out
through the steady, unswerving eyes, even when they twinkled with
mirth; it met the gaze of the world with a serene imperiousness that
gave way before no mortal influence; it told without boastfulness a
story of centuries. For he was the son of a princess royal, and the
blood of ten score rulers of men had come down to him as a heritage
of strength.

His mother, the beautiful, gracious and lamented Yetive, set all
royal circles by the ears when she married the American, Lorry, back
in the nineties. A special act of the ministry had legalised this
union and the son of the American was not deprived of his right to
succeed to the throne which his forebears had occupied for centuries.
From his mother he had inherited the right of kings, from his father
the spirit of freedom; from his mother the power of majesty, from his
father the power to see beyond that majesty. When little more than a
babe in arms he was orphaned and the affairs of state fell upon the
shoulders of three loyal and devoted men who served as regents until
he became of age.

Wisely they served both him and the people through the years that
intervened between the death of the Princess and her consort and the
day when he reached his majority. That day was a glorious one in
Graustark. The people worshipped the little Prince when he was in
knickerbockers and played with toys; they saw him grow to manhood
with hearts that were full of hope and contentment; they made him
their real ruler with the same joyous spirit that had attended him in
the days when he sat in the great throne and "made believe" that he
was one of the mighty, despite the fact that his little legs barely
reached to the edge of the gold and silver seat,--and slept soundly
through all the befuddling sessions of the cabinet. He was seven when
the great revolt headed by Count Marlanx came so near to overthrowing
the government, and he behaved like the Prince that he was. It was
during those perilous times that he came to know the gallant Truxton
King in whose home he was now a happy guest. But before Truxton King
he knew the lovely girl who became the wife of that devoted
adventurer, and who, to him, was always to be "Aunt Loraine."

As a very small boy he had paid two visits to the homeland of his
father, but after the death of his parents his valuable little person
was guarded so jealously by his subjects that not once had he set
foot beyond the borders of Graustark, except on two widely separated
occasions of great pomp and ceremony at the courts of Vienna and St.
Petersburgh, and a secret journey to London when he was seventeen.
(It appears that he was determined to see a great football match.) On
each of these occasions he was attended by watchful members of the
cabinet and certain military units in the now far from insignificant
standing army. As a matter of fact, he witnessed the football match
from the ordinary stands, surrounded by thousands of unsuspecting
Britons, but carefully wedged in between two generals of his own army
and flanked by a minister of police, a minister of the treasury and a
minister of war, all of whom were excessively bored by the contest
and more or less appalled by his unregal enthusiasm. He had insisted
on going to the match incog, to enjoy it for all it was worth to the
real spectators--those who sit or stand where the compression is not
unlike that applied to a box of sardines.

The regency expired when he was twenty years of age, and he became
ruler in fact, of himself as well as of the half-million subjects who
had waited patiently for the great day that was to see him crowned
and glorified. Not one was there in that goodly half million who
stood out against him on that triumphant day; not one who possessed a
sullen or resentful heart. He was their Prince, and they loved him
well. After that wonderful coronation day he would never forget that
he was a Prince or that the hearts of a half million were to throb
with love for him so long as he was man as well as Prince.

Mr. Blithers was very close to the truth when he said (to himself, if
you remember) that the financial situation in the far-off
principality was not all that could be desired. It is true that
Graustark was in Russia's debt to the extent of some twenty million
gavvos,--about thirty millions of dollars, in other words,--and that
the day of reckoning was very near at hand. The loan was for a period
of twelve years, and had been arranged contrary to the advice of John
Tullis, an American financier who long had been interested in the
welfare of the principality through friendship for the lamented
Prince Consort, Lorry. He had been farsighted enough to realise that
Russia would prove a hard creditor, even though she may have been
sincere in her protestations of friendship for the modest borrower.

A stubborn element in the cabinet overcame his opposition, however,
and the debt was contracted, taxation increased by popular vote and a
period of governmental thriftiness inaugurated. Railroads, highways,
bridges and aqueducts were built, owned and controlled by the state,
and the city of Edelweiss rebuilt after the devastation created
during the revolt of Count Marlanx and his minions. There seemed to
be some prospect of vindication for the ministry and Tullis, who
lived in Edelweiss, was fair-minded enough to admit that their action
appeared to have been for the best. The people had prospered and
taxes were paid in full and without complaint. The reserve fund grew
steadily and surely and there was every prospect that when the huge
debt came due it would be paid in cash. But on the very crest of
their prosperity came adversity. For two years the crops failed and a
pestilence swept through the herds. The flood of gavvos that had been
pouring into the treasury dwindled into a pitiful rivulet; the little
that came in was applied, of necessity, to administration purposes
and the maintenance of the army, and there was not so much as a penny
left over for the so-called sinking fund.

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