"For this commission your Majesty will easily find another person in my stead." KING (whirling hastily round, with an angry countenance, but, I should say, an admirable preservation of his dignity in such extreme case).
"SALDERN, ER WILL NICHT REICH WERDEN,--Saldern, you refuse to become rich." And EXIT, leaving Saldern to his own stiff courses.

[Kuster, _Charakterzuge des General-Lieutenant v.

Saldern_ (Berlin, 1793), pp.
39-44.] Nothing remained for Saldern but to fall ill, and retire from the Service; which he did: a man honorably ruined, thought everybody;--which did not prove to be the case, by and by.
This surely is a remarkable Dialogue; far beyond any of the Gellert kind.

An absolute King and Commander-in-Chief, and of such a type in both characters, getting flat refusal once in his life (this once only, so far as I know), and how he takes it:--one wishes Kuster, or somebody, had been able to go into more details!--Details on the Quintus-Icilius procedure, which followed next day, would also have been rather welcome, had Kuster seen good.

It is well known, Quintus Icilius and his Battalion, on order now given, went cheerfully, next day, in Saldern's stead.