"'Oh, you could not miss us even by grope.

That big hollow that goes from Burg, and even from Potschappel,--it would have poured like a water-spout [or fire-spout] over us.

You see, I am not so brave as you think.' "The Kaiser had set out for his Interview [First Interview, and indeed it is now more than half done, a good six weeks of it gone] with the Czarina of Russia.

That Interview the King did not like [no wonder]:--and, to undo the good it had done us, he directly, and very unskilfully, sent the Prince Royal to Petersburg [who had not the least success there, loutish fellow, and was openly snubbed by a Czarina gone into new courses].

His Majesty already doubted that the Court of Russia was about to escape him:--and I was dying of fear lest, in the middle of all his kindnesses, he should remember that I was an Austrian.