So that they were in no wise fitting to attend upon a mighty dignitary.
The Prince of Plassenburg looked round.
"Ha!" he said; "this is not well--I had forgotten.

My orderly ought to have been duly arrayed by this time." "Pardon, my Prince," said I, "but all the apparel I have is upon my sumpter horse, which comes in the train of the Princess." My master looked right and left in his quickly imperious and yet humorous manner.
"Here, Count von Reuss," he said to a tall, handsome, heavily jowled young man, "I pray you strip off thy fine coat for an hour, and lend it to my new officer-in-waiting.

The ladies will admire thee more than ever in thy fine flowered waistcoat, with silk sleeves and frilled purfles of lace!" The young man, Von Reuss, looked as if he desired much to tell the Prince to go and be hanged.

But there was something in the bearing of Karl of Plassenburg, usurper as they called him, the like of which for command I have never seen in the countenance and manner of any lawfully begotten prince in the world.
So, beckoning me into an antechamber, and swearing evilly under his breath all the time, the young man stripped off his fine coat, and offered it to me with one hand, without so much as looking at me.

He gave it indeed churlishly, as one might give a dole to a loathsome beggar to be rid of his importunity.
"I thank you, sir," said I, "but more for your obedience to the Prince than for the fashion of your courtesy to me." Yet for all that he answered me never a syllable, but turned his head and played with his mustache till his man-servant brought him another coat..