CHAPTER XVIL 

 RUDOLPH AT WORK. 



"The business that we love, we rise betimes 

 And go to it with delight." 



Shakespeare. 



S "Sacred Caesarean Majesty," looking uncommonly 

 genial and alert, sat in a wooden, straight-backed 

 chair by a table near a window, in a small, plainly 

 furnished apartment of the royal palace ; at a desk 

 piled high with papers was his private secretary, Doctor 

 Michael Maier, preparing to present to the Emperor for his 

 consideration reports, petitions, and decrees of national im- 

 portance. Rudolph had that morning informed his secretary 

 that he felt inclined to dispose of some of the accumulated 

 business, and the Doctor was only too happy to take advan- 

 tage of so rare a frame of mind. 



The imperial secretary laid on the table before his Majesty 

 several papers of minor importance, the contents of which 

 he had ' previously approved and which only required the 

 official signature of the monarch to become laws, but Rudolph 

 brushed them aside and remarked, he was not quite prepared 

 to attach his name and seal. The secretary then proposed 

 to submit some reports from army officers of high rank sta- 

 tioned on the Turkish frontier, and began to read one of the 

 papers, when Rudolph quietly said "Enough," and ordered 



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