'Not what you might call disliked,' replied the old gentleman, 'but
despised, sir.'

'Indeed,' said the Prince, somewhat faintly.

'Yes, sir, despised,' nodded Killian, filling a long pipe, 'and, to
my way of thinking, justly despised. Here is a man with great
opportunities, and what does he do with them? He hunts, and he
dresses very prettily - which is a thing to be ashamed of in a man -
and he acts plays; and if he does aught else, the news of it has not
come here.'

'Yet these are all innocent,' said Otto. 'What would you have him
do - make war?'

'No, sir,' replied the old man. 'But here it is; I have been fifty
years upon this River Farm, and wrought in it, day in, day out; I
have ploughed and sowed and reaped, and risen early, and waked late;
and this is the upshot: that all these years it has supported me and
my family; and been the best friend that ever I had, set aside my
wife; and now, when my time comes, I leave it a better farm than
when I found it. So it is, if a man works hearty in the order of
nature, he gets bread and he receives comfort, and whatever he
touches breeds. And it humbly appears to me, if that Prince was to
labour on his throne, as I have laboured and wrought in my farm, he
would find both an increase and a blessing.'

'I believe with you, sir,' Otto said; 'and yet the parallel is
inexact. For the farmer's life is natural and simple; but the
prince's is both artificial and complicated. It is easy to do right