My eye fell on an ornament on the mantel; a carved kneeling figure. A little prickle ran through me as I realized that this was the cupid Bismarck had mentioned—by jove, he knew his business, that one. Down to the last detail. I rolled off the bed and looked at it, and felt a slight glow of pleasure as I realized it wasn’t a cupid after all—it was a nymph. The great Otto wasn’t infallible then, after all. It was most obviously a nymph, and contemplating it I realized there was one thing missing from my princely paradise. Bronze nymphs don’t compare to real ones: I hadn’t had a woman since the blubbery Baroness Pechman had been so rudely plucked from my embrace—and I hadn’t really been able to get to proper grips with her before Rudi had interrupted us. Fat and all as she was, the thought of her was making me feverish, and at that moment there was a soft tap at the door and a slim, very sober-looking fellow slipped in. This was obviously Josef, my valet.

I was on guard again in a moment.

“Is there anything your highness requires?” says he.

“I don’t think so, Josef,” says I, and gave a yawn. “Just going to bed.” And then a splendid idea occurred to me. “You may send up a chambermaid to turn down the covers.”

He looked surprised. “I can do that, sir.”

Now, Flashy would have growled: “Damn your eyes, do as you’re bloody well told.” But Prince Carl Gustaf merely said: “No, send the chambermaid.”

He hesitated a second, his face expressionless. Then: “Very good, your highness.” He bowed and went to the door. “Good-night, highness.”

Of course, it was a dam-fool thing to do, but what with the brandy and my randy thoughts, I didn’t care. Anyway, wasn’t I a prince? And the real Carl Gustaf was no monk, by all accounts—and damned careless about it, too. So I waited in lustful anticipation, until there was another knock, and a girl peeped in when I called out to enter.

She was a pretty, plump little thing, curly-haired and as broad as she was long, but just the thing for me with my thoughts running on Baroness Pechman. She had a bright eye, and it occurred to me that Josef was perhaps no fool. She curtsied and tripped across to the bed, and when I sauntered over—slipping the doorbolt on the way—and stood beside her, she giggled and made a great show of smoothing out my pillow.