A DAY WITH FRIEDRICH.
Page: 23

journey because I had no REVIEW on hand; and it has given me such
pleasure that I shall certainly have another by and by.'

"'Tell me now: how did you get on in the last War [KARTOFFEL KRIEG,
no fighting, only a scramble for proviant and "potatoes"]?
Most likely ill! You in Saxony too could make nothing out.
The reason was, we had not men to fight against, but cannons!
I might have done a thing or two; but I should have sacrificed more
than the half of my Army, and shed innocent human blood. In that
case I should have deserved to be taken to the Guard-house door,
and to have got a sixscore there (EINEN OFFFENTLICHEN PRODUKT)!
Wars are becoming frightful to carry on.'

"'This was surely touching to hear from the mouth of a great
Monarch,' said Herr Lieutenant-Colonel von Backhof to me, and tears
came into that old soldier's eyes." Afterwards his Majesty
had said:--

"Of the Battle of Fehrbellin I know everything, almost as if I
myself had been there! While I was Crown-Prince, and lay in Ruppin,
there was an old townsman, the man was even then very old: he could
describe the whole Battle, and knew the scene of it extremely well.
Once I got into a carriage, took my old genius with me, who showed
me all over the ground, and described everything so distinctly, I
was much contented with him. As we were coming back, I thought:
Come, let me have a little fun with the old blade;--so I asked him:
'Father, don't you know, then, why the two Sovereigns came to
quarrel with one another?'--'O ja, your Royal HighnessES [from this
point we have Platt-Deutsch, PRUSSIAN dialect, for the old man's
speech; barely intelligible, as Scotch is to an ingenious
Englishman], DAT WILL ICK SE WOHL SEGGEN, I can easily tell you
that. When our Chorforste [Kurfursts, Great Elector] was young, he
studied in Utrecht; and there the King of Sweden happened to be
too. And now the two young lords picked some quarrel, got to
pulling caps [fell into one another's hair], AND DIT IS NU DE PICKE
DAVON, and this now was the upshot of it.'--His Majesty spoke this
in Platt-Deutsch, as here given;--but grew at table so weary that
he (they) fell asleep." So far Backhof;--and now again Fromme by