The Prince of Graustark | Page 9

George Barr McCutcheon
I will look for

the Golden Girl sitting by the wayside. She must be there, and though it
is a wide world, I am young and my eyes are sharp. I will find her
sitting at the roadside eager for me to come, not housed in a gloomy;
castle surrounded by the spooks of a hundred ancestors. They who live
in castles wed to hate and they who wed at the roadside live to love.
Fortune attend me! If love lies at the roadside waiting, do not let me
pass it by. All the princesses are not inside the castles. Some sit outside
the gates and laugh with glee, for love is their companion. So away I go,
la, la! looking for the princess with the happy heart and the smiling lips!
It is a wide world but my eyes are sharp. I shall find my princess."
But, alas, for his fine young dream, he found no Golden Girl at the
roadside nor anything that suggested romance. There were happy hearts
and smiling lips--and all for him, it would appear--but he passed them
by, for his eyes were sharp and his wits awake. And so, at last, he came
to Gotham, his heart as free as the air he breathed, confessing that his
quest had been in vain. History failed to repeat itself. His mother's
romance would stand alone and shine without a flicker to the end of
time. There could be no counterpart.
"Well, I had the fun of looking," he philosophised (to himself, for no
man knew of his secret project) and grinned with a sort of amused
tolerance for the sentimental side of his nature. "I'm a silly ass to have
even dreamed of finding her as I passed along, and if I had found her
what the deuce could I have done about it anyway? This isn't the day
for mediaeval lady-snatching. I dare say I'm just as well off for not
having found her. I still have the zest for hunting farther, and there's a
lot in that." Then aloud: "Hobbs, are we on time?"
"We are, sir," said Hobbs, without even glancing at his watch. The train
was passing 125th Street. "To the minute, sir. We will be in in ten
minutes, if nothing happens. Mr. King will be at the station to meet you,
sir. Any orders, sir?"
"Yes, pinch me, Hobbs."
"Pinch your Highness?" in amazement. "My word, sir, wot--"

"I just want to be sure that the dream is over, Hobbs. Never mind. You
needn't pinch me. I'm awake," and to prove it he stretched his fine
young body in the ecstasy of realisation.
That night he slept soundly in the Catskills.
CHAPTER III
MR. BLITHERS GOES VISITING
I repeat: Prince Robin was as handsome a chap as you'll see in a week's
journey. He was just under six feet, slender, erect and strong in the way
that a fine blade is strong. His hair was dark and straight, his eyes
blue-black, his cheek brown and ruddy with the health of a life
well-ordered. Nose, mouth and chin were clean-cut and indicative of
power, while his brow was broad and smooth, with a surface so serene
that it might have belonged to a woman. At first glance you would have
taken him for a healthy, eager American athlete, just out of college, but
that aforementioned seriousness in his deep-set, thoughtful eyes would
have caused you to think twice before pronouncing him a fledgling. He
had enjoyed life, he had made the most of his play-days, but always
there had hung over his young head the shadow of the cross that would
have to be supported to the end of his reign, through thick and thin,
through joy and sorrow, through peace and strife.
He saw the shadow when he was little more than a baby; it was like a
figure striding beside him always; it never left him. He could not be
like other boys, for he was a prince, and it was a serious business being
a prince! A thousand times, as a lad, he had wished that he could have a
few "weeks off" from being what he was and be just a common,
ordinary, harum scarum boy, like the "kids" of Petrove, the head
stableman. He would even have put up with the thrashings they got
from their father, just for the sake of enjoying the mischief that
purchased the punishment. But alas! no one would ever dream of
giving him the lovely "tannings" that other boys got when they were
naughty. Such joys were not for him; he was mildly reproved and that
was all. But his valiant spirit found release in many a glorious though

secret encounter with boys both large and small, and not infrequently
he sustained severe
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