Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/168

 MARK THOUGHT JOAN OF ARC WAS SLANDERED

I was telling Mark about some frolic at the Berlin Court, when the sprightly "Lottchen," Princess of Meiningen, William*s sister, proposed a riddle that puzzled the exalted, but not too quick-witted company—

"Even to the utmost—I know what you want to say. They tell me they are having the charade-fever at the Schloss, is that it?"

"Precisely,*' I answered, and went on to tell of the silly rebus competitions in which the Kaiser took special delight. I had my story from the Baroness Von Larisch, a witness, who enjoyed a photographic memory.

"A movie memory," corrected Mark, "but go on."

Well, I reported, H.R.H. quoted nine or ten descriptions of the party to be guessed at, and neither the Majesties, nor the Highnesses, nor the Graces, nor the Disgraces came anywhere near the solution. Whereupon Lottchen startled the company by announcing the answer: "Joan of Arc."

Twain took the cigar out of his mouth and sat up straight, which, as everybody knows, he did only on rare occasions.

"Blasphemy most horrible!" he thundered, "making a joke of Joan of Arc, my Joan of Arc!"

"Your book isn't out yet," I said by way of pouring oil on troubled waters. "And until 164