A DAY WITH FRIEDRICH.
Page: 9

NICHT WAHR?' [Ha?]

ICH. "'Your Majesty's gracious pardon [EW. MAJESTAT HALTEN ZU
GNADEN,--hold me to grace]: the ground belongs to the Royal Forest,
and there grows nothing but birches on it.'

KING. "'Oh, if birchwood is all it produces, then we may see!
But you must not make your reckoning without your host either, that
the cost may not outrun the use.'

ICH. "'The cost will certainly not outrun the use. For, first, your
Majesty may securely reckon that eighteen hundred acres will be won
from the water; that will be six-and-thirty colonists, allowing
each 50 acres. And now if there were a small light toll put upon
the raft-timber and the ships that will frequent the new canal,
there would be ample interest for the outlay.'

KING. "'Na, tell my Geheimer-Rath Michaelis of it. The man
understands that kind of matters; and I will advise you to apply to
the man in every particular of such things, and wherever you know
that colonists can be settled. I don't want whole colonies at once;
but wherever there are two or three families of them, I say apply
to that man about it.'

ICH. "'It shall he done, your Majesty.'

KING. "'Can't I see Wusterau,' where old Ajax Ziethen lives,
'from here?'

ICH. "'Yes, your Majesty; there to the right, that is it.'
It BELONGS to General von Ziethen; and terrible BUILDING he has had
here,--almost all his life!

KING. "'Is the General at home?'

ICH. "'Ja.'

KING. "'How do you know?'

ICH. "'Your Majesty, the Rittmeister von Lestock lies in my village
on GRAZING service; and last night the Herr General sent a letter
over to him by a groom. In that way I know it.'

KING. "'Did General von Ziethen gain, among others, by the draining
of the Luch?'

ICH. "'O ja; the Farm-stead there to the right he built in
consequence, and has made a dairy there, which he could not have
done, had not the Luch been drained.'

KING. "'That I am glad of!--What is the Beamte's name in Alt-
Ruppin?' [Old Ruppin, I suppose, or part of its endless "RUPPIN or
RHYN MERE," catches the King's eye.]

ICH. "'Honig.'

KING. "'How long has he been there?'