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1905.] Aunt Rivette fell on her knees, pale and trembling, In agony she raised her hands.

“I ’ll never do it again! Let me off, your Majesty!” she screamed. “Let me off this once! I ’ll never do it again! Never! Never!”

“All right,” said Bud, with a cheery smile. “I ’ll let you off this time. But if you don’t behave, or if you interfere with me or Puff, I ’ll have the lord high executioner take charge of you. Just remember I ’m the king, and then we ’ll get along all right. Now you may go upstairs if you wish to and pick out a room on the top story. Fluff and I are going to play.”

With this he laid his crown carefully on the seat of the throne and threw off his ermine robe.

“Come on, Fluff! We ’ve had enough business for to-day,” he said, and dragged the laughing princess from the room, while Aunt Rivette meekly followed the lord high steward up the stairs to a comfortable apartment just undeneath the roof.

She was very well satisfied at last; and very soon she sent for the lord high purse-bearer and demanded money with which to buy some fine clothes for herself,

This was given her willingly, for the law provided for the comfort of every relative of the king, and knowing this, Aunt Rivette fully intended to be the most comfortable woman in the kingdom of Noland.

whole name was Hendrik van Gelder Schmitt, but as the pupils of the Conrad High School found that too much for their unaccustomed tongues, he was called “Dutchy” for short, and this title he bore throughout his whole sojourn in the school. This was his first year at Conrad, but he had had a good training in a Canadian high school before he came to the States, and as a result was put in the senior class. Here he became the chief source of amusement for the pupils, and at times even for the teachers. His faulty English and the frequent fun-poking of the pupils were often the occasions of outbursts of Anglo-Dutch which sent the class into convulsions of uncontrollable laughter. Still, he was an excellent scholar, and showed such good judgment in all questions of weighty importance in school matters that before he had been there two months he was unanimously elected the vice-president of the senior class and was defeated in the competition for presidency by only a few votes.

With the close of the foot-ball season that of hockey began, and it was not long before the ice-rinks were covered with pupils trying to make the team.

“Vat are de rules for playing dis game?” asked Dutchy one afternoon while watching the players driving the puck across the ice.

“Oh, you can’t trip anybody up, nor hold any one, nor get offside. But you can shove with your shoulders all you want in a scrimmage.”

Dutchy had spent several winters in Holland before he came to America, and was considered there a good skater. He improved his ability in that direction while in Canada, and now he resolved to try for the Conrad hockey team. Stepping up to Langton, who was captain of the hockey team, he announced his intention of trying to make the five.

Dutchy got his skates, which were ones he had bought in Amsterdam, and joined the group of skaters, who greeted him warmly. Then he entered enthusiastically into the sport, and soon made it evident that he was the fastest skater and most brilliant player in the school. Every one was astonished; from that moment he became a sort of hero in the school and the boys ceased to tease him.