Long Live the King! by Guy Boothby — Read

How strange it seems, after this long lapse of time, to look back upon those days, and after all that has come between. When I think of the child whose curious fancies, strange whims, and still stranger life, I am about to portray, I find myself inclining towards what is certainly a feeling of bewilderment, and one that might almost be said to be akin to physical pain. That the little fellow I see in my mind's eye, playing so happily on the far side of that River of Years, can be _myself_, the man sitting in this chair, who, pen in hand, is trying so hard to arrange his thoughts, is to me scarcely believable. Between the two there looms so vast a difference, that it would appear as if no possible connecting link could serve to unite them with each other. Whether I am better or worse for the change must be left for more competent judges to declare.

Looking back, I can scarcely determine which is the first event in my life that I can recall. I have always declared that I have the very faintest recollection of being held up by my mother at a window to see my father present some new colours to his favourite regiment of Guards in the square below. But if, as they say, that occurrence happened exactly five-and-twenty years ago, and the records of the Regiment are there to prove it, my memory must be a more than ordinarily good one, seeing that, at the time, I could not have been more than three years of age. Imperfect though that recollection may be, however, it is quite certain that I can distinctly recall the day, two years later, when my brother, the Crown Prince Maximilian, being then a big boy of nine, led his regiment past my father on parade for the first time.