The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-07-16
Continued.l
Copyright. 1908. by Dodd. Mead
 a Go.

TOT SIX months. The American nag hoated above his doorway in the Fried rfchstrasse, but in all his six months of occupation not ten Americans had crossed the threshold. He was a wig orous, healthy young man. and it may well be presumed that the situation bored him. He was not a politician; no more was he an office seeker. He was a real soldier of fortune in search of a.ffairs-in peace or in war, on land or at sea. Possessed of a small in come sufficiently adequate to sustain life if he managed to advance it to the purple age, but wholly incapable of supporting him as a thriftless diplo- mat, he was compelled to make the best of his talents, no matter to what test they were put. He left college at twepty-two, possessed of the praise worthy design to earn his own way without recourse to the $4, 500 income from a certain trust fund. His plan also ipcRgporated the hope to Gave every peppy of that income for the possible "rainy day" He was now thirty. In each of several New York banks he had something like S4,OOO drawing per cent interest, while he
 
 world on $25oO a year, more or less, as chance ordained.
 When I'm forty" Chase was wont to remark to envious spendthrifts who couldn't understand his philosophy, "I'll have over a hundred thousand there, and if I live tQ;be ninety just think what I'll .haxe.t Moreover, ! may get married apdthave to maintain a poor wife with rich sEelatives, which is terrible strain, you know. You have to live up to your wife's rela- tives, if you don't do anything else" He did not refer to the chance that he was quite sure to come in for a large legacy at the death of his ma- ternal grandfather, a millionaire ranch owner in the far west.
 After leaving college he drifted pretty much over the world, taking pot luck with fortune and clasping the hand of circumstance. There had been hard roads to travel as well as easy ones, but he never complained. He swung on through life with the heart of soldier and the confidence of pagan. He loathed business, and be abhorred trade.
 
 no man. No one had the right to question his actions after his twenty first anniversary. He went in for law at Yale and then practiced restlessly, vaguely, for two years in Baltimore under the patronage of his fathers oldest friend, lawyer of distinction.
 Firing of the law books and reports in the old judges office, he suddenly abandoned his calling and set forth to see the world. Almost before his friends knew that he had left he was heard of in Turkestan. In course of time he served as war correspondent for one of the great newspapers, acted as agent for great hemp dealers in the Philippines, carried a rife with the Boers in South Africa, hunted wild beasts in Asia and in Hottentot land, took snapshots in St. Petersburg and almost got to the north pole with one of the expeditions. Not in a months journey would you meet a truer thor oughbred, a more agreeable chap, a more polished vagahond, than Hollings- worth Chase, first lieutenant in Dame Fortunes army. Tall, good looking, cheerful, gallant, he was the true comrade of those merry, reck- less volunteers from all lands who find commissions in Fortunes army and serve her faithfully
 He was nearly thirty when the diplo- matic service began to appeal to him as pleasing variation from the rigor- ous occupations he had followed here tofore. One of his uncles was a con- gressman, and another was in some way connected with railroads, He first sought the infiuence of the latter and then the recommendation of the for mer. In less than six weeks after his arrival in Washington he was off for the city of Thorberg, in the grand duchy of Rapp-Thorberg. carrying with him an appointment as consul and supplied with the proper stamps and seal of office.
 At the end e five months he 1oathed Thorberg; he hated the inhabitants; he smarted under the sting of royal diSdain; he had no real friends, no boon companions, and he was obliged to be good What wonder, then, that the bored. suffering, vivacious MT. Chase seized the first opportunity to leap headforemost into the very thick of a most appalling indiscretion,
 When he first arrived in Thorberg to assume his sluggish duties he was not aware of the fact that the grand duke had an unmarried daughter, the Prin- cess Genevra.
 She was visiting in St. Petersburg or Berlin or some other place when he reached his post of duty, and it was toward the end of his fifth month be- fore she returned to her fathers palace II4 -ol- lx@ sv,a portance of the occasion and took some slight interest in the return of the royal young lady, even going so far as to follow the crowd to the railway sta tion on the sunny June afternoon.
 He saw the princess for the first time that afternoon, and he was bowfed over, to use the expression of his English friends with whom he dined that night. She was the first woman that he had ever looked upon that he could describe for she was the