“Poor boys!” said the poet, laughing; “it was very kind, and they could ill afford it.  But they would have drunk quite as much wine for any one who would have taken the inside out of the University clock, or burnt the Principal’s wig, as they did for me.  It was a very unsteady procession that brought me home, I assure you.  The way they poked the torches in each other’s faces left one student, as I heard, with no less than eight duels on his hands.  And, oh! the manner in which they howled my most pathetic love songs!  No! no!”

The Duke laughed heartily.

“Is it any of the various occasions on which the fair ladies of Germany have testified their admiration by offerings of sympathy and handiwork?”

“No!” roared the poet.

“Are you quite sure?” said the Duke, slyly.  “I have heard of comforters, and slippers, and bouquets, and locks of hair, besides a dozen of warm stockings knit by the fair hands of ——­”

“Spare me!” groaned Friedrich, in mock indignation.  “Am I a pet preacher, that I should be smothered in female absurdities?  I have hair that would stuff a sofa, comforters that would protect a regiment in Siberia, slippers, stockings ——.  I shall sell them, I shall burn them.  I would send them back, but the ladies send nothing but their Christian names, and to identify Luise, and Gretchen, and Catherine, and Bettina, is beyond my powers.  No!”

When they had ceased laughing the Duke continued his catechism.

“Was it when the great poet G——­ (your only rival) paid that handsome compliment to your verses on ——­”

“No!” interrupted the poet.  “A thousand times no!  The great poet praised the verses you allude to simply to cover his depreciation of my ‘Captive Queen,’ which is among my best efforts, but too much in his own style.  How Germany can worship his bombastic ——­ but that’s nothing!  No.”

“Was it when you passed accidentally through the streets of Dresden, and the crowd discovered you, and carried you to the hotel on its shoulders?”

The momentary frown passed from Friedrich’s face, and he laughed again.

“And when the men who carried me twisted my leg so that I couldn’t walk for a fortnight, to say nothing of the headache I endured from bowing to the populace like a Chinese mandarin?  No!”

“Is it any triumph you have enjoyed in any other country in Europe?”

“No!”

“My dear genius, I can guess no more; what, in the name of Fortune, was this happy occasion—­this life triumph?”

“It is a long story, your highness, and entertaining to no one but myself.”

“You do me injustice,” said the Duke.  “A long story from you is too good to be lost.  Sit down, and favour me.”

A patron’s wishes are not to be neglected; and somewhat unwillingly the poet at last sat down, and told the story of his Ballad and of St. Nicholas’s Day, as it has been told here.  The fountain of tears is drier in middle age than in childhood, but he was not unmoved as he concluded.