The Helena Independent

PRINCE AND FLOWER SELLER.

An Incident in the Life of Good Emperor Frederick.

The Pall Mall Gazette: A pretty story of the late Emperor Frederick is told in one of the German papers. Some years ago, shortly before the death of the old emperor of Germany, a tall, handsome gentleman jumped into a third-class carriage of a local railway at Berlin, just as the train was leaving the station. An old flower-seller, with a basket of newly-cut hyacinths, was the only other occupant of the compartment. He asked the old dame to sell him a bunch, and, mollified by his suave manner, she chose the freshest and largest, and handed it to him. Its price was a penny, but as the gentleman had no coppers, and the old woman no change, not having sold any of her goods yet, she was paid with a mark piece, which, as she said at once, was a thing that had never been heard of before in a third-class railway carriage.

Presently the stranger and the flower-seller were deep in conversation, and it turned out that the poor woman was the only breadwinner of a family of four. Her son was crippled, her granddaughter a little school-girl, and her husband had for some months past been out of work, since a new railway official had dismissed him as being too old to do much work.

The stranger then suggested that she should apply on her husband's behalf to the railway authorities.

"That is no good whatever," she replied, as she wiped her tears with her apron.

"If you haven't the pope for your cousin nowadays you can't get anybody to listen to you."

"Then try the emperor," the stranger went on. "Alas!" she sighed. "If the old gentleman were allowed to see the petitions that are sent, it might do some good, but he does not get to know about us poor people."

"Well, then, let your husband write to the crown prince." "Yes," she said, "he might do that," and she would tell him so as soon as she had sold her flowers. By this time the train had got to the terminus, the old dame bundled out her basket and noticed with astonishment that the officials and the crowd on the platform looked at her carriage, and saluted and cheered.

"What's up?" she asked. "Why, the crown prince was in the same compartment with you!" Then the flower-seller held her head high and told every syllable of what had happened to the delighted crowd. Her flowers were sold before five minutes were over, and a fortnight afterward her husband was at work again in his old place.