'Please your Majesty, give it me back!' begged the Boy; and again begged: Majesty took no notice; continued writing.

Till at length came, in the tone of indignation, 'Will your Majesty give me my ball, then ?' The King looked up; found the little Hohenzollern planted firm, hands on haunches, and wearing quite a peremptory air.

'Thou art a brave little fellow; they won't get Silesia out of thee!' cried he laughing, and flinging him his ball." [Fischer, ii.

445 ("year 1780").] Of the elder Prince, afterwards Friedrich Wilhelm III.

(Father of the now King), there is a much more interesting Anecdote, and of his own reporting too, though the precise terms are irrecoverable: "How the King, questioning him about his bits of French studies, brought down a LA FONTAINE from the shelves, and said, 'Translate me this Fable;' which the Boy did, with such readiness and correctness as obtained the King's praises: praises to an extent that was embarrassing, and made the honest little creature confess, 'I did it with my Tutor, a few days since!' To the King's much greater delight; who led him out to walk in the Gardens, and, in a mood of deeper and deeper seriousness, discoursed and exhorted him on the supreme law of truth and probity that lies on all men, and on all Kings still more; one of his expressions being, 'Look at this high thing [the Obelisk they were passing in the Gardens], its UPRIGHTness is its strength (SA DROITURE FAIT SA FORCE);' and his final words, 'Remember this evening, my good Fritz; perhaps thou wilt think of it, long after, when I am gone.' As the good Friedrich Wilhelm III.