He forbade the "triumphal entry" which Berlin was preparing for him; entered privately; and ordered a thanksgiving sermon in all the churches next Sunday.
THE DEVIL IN HARNESS: CREUTZ THE FINANCE-MINISTER.
In the King's absence nothing particular had occurred,--except indeed the walking of a dreadful Spectre, three nights over, in the corridors of the Palace at Berlin; past the doors where our little Prince and Wilhelmina slept: bringing with it not airs from Heaven, we may fear, but blasts from the Other place! The stalwart sentries shook in their paces, and became "half-dead" from terror.

"A horrible noise, one night," says Wilhelmina, "when all were buried in sleep: all the world started up, thinking it was fire; but they were much surprised to find that it was a Spectre." Evident Spectre, seen to pass this way, "and glide along that gallery, as if towards the apartments of the Queen's Ladies." Captain of the Guard could find nothing in that gallery, or anywhere, and withdrew again:--but lo, it returns the way it went! Stalwart sentries were found melted into actual delirium of swooning, as the Preternatural swept by this second time.

"They said, It was the Devil in person; raised by Swedish wizards to kill the Prince-Royal." [Wilhelmina, _Memoires de Bareith_, i.

18.]l Poor Prince-Royal; sleeping sound, we hope; little more than three years old at this time, and knowing nothing of it!--All Berlin talked of the affair.

People dreaded it might be a "Spectre" of Swedish tendencies; aiming to burn the Palace, spirit off the Royal Children, and do one knew not what?
Not that at all, by any means! The Captain of the Guard, reinforcing himself to defiance even of the Preternatural, does, on the third or fourth apparition, clutch the Spectre; finds him to be--a prowling Scullion of the Palace, employed here he will not say how; who is straightway locked in prison, and so exorcised at least.