HOW THE CROWN PRINCE WAS "DUCKED."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6099, 4 June 1881, Page 3

HOW THE CROWN PRINCE WAS "DUCKED."

That expert and powerful swimmer, Frederick William, the German Crown Prince, goes,'it is said, early every morning during the summer months to the great swimming school of the Imperial Garrison at Potsdam, and there takes his header and has a good stretch round and-round again. It sometimes happens that the big guardsmen are in the water practising swimming drill; and on more than one occasion the Crown Prince, who has no objection to a practical joke; has silently swum up to some big, clumsy fellow, who seemed not to be quite at home in the .water and, seizing him by the backof theneck has given him, a ducking. One morning he caught, in this way, several of the colossal Grenadiers of the First Regiment—the regiment in which he had served his military apprenticeship—and as he paddled round, he cried out, "Now yon may try it on me, if you can." 'No sooner had he said the words than a great hand closed oh his neck like a vice, and down he went. Again and again he was ducked, till he was obliged to use what little breath he had left to cry ont that he had had : .'?more than-enough." No sooner had he cleared his eyes of water than he turned to look at; his assailant, a colossal Grenadier, andr -asked him his . name. "Schott, Imperial, Highness," .was the answer. "Whence do you come?" . " Prom Nimmersett" (a village on the distant frontier of East Prussia). " How long have you served?" , /'Two years, Imperial Highness." " Have you had any furlough yet.?'. , . ',' No; Imperial Highness; my. home is top far off, and the journey costs too much'money." The Prince said no more at the time; but two days later, Grenadier Schott Was summoned to the regimental adjutant's office, where he was told that he had a fortnight's leave to visit his family, and that he was ordered to apply to the Court Marshal of his Imperial Highness the Crown Prince for his travelling expenses and ration-money.

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