the licentiate, with a
smile, "I think I should amuse you if I were to explain my notion of a
prince. We who have studied in the closet, no longer, in this age,
propose ourselves for active service. The paths, we have perceived, are
incompatible. I would not have a student on the throne, though I would
have one near by for an adviser. I would set forward as prince a man of
a good, medium understanding, lively rather than deep; a man of courtly
manner, possessed of the double art to ingratiate and to command;
receptive, accommodating, seductive. I have been observing you since
your first entrance. Well, sir, were I a subject of Gruenewald I should
pray Heaven to set upon the seat of government just such another as
yourself."

"The devil you would!" exclaimed the Prince.

The licentiate Roederer laughed most heartily. "I thought I should
astonish you," he said. "These are not the ideas of the masses."

"They are not, I can assure you," Otto said.

"Or rather," distinguished the licentiate, "not to-day. The time will
come, however, when these ideas shall prevail."

"You will permit me, sir, to doubt it," said Otto.

"Modesty is always admirable," chuckled the theorist. "But yet I assure
you, a man like you, with such a man as, say, Dr. Gotthold at your
elbow, would be, for all practical issues, my ideal ruler."

At this rate the hours sped pleasantly for Otto. But the licentiate
unfortunately slept that night at Beckstein, where he was, being dainty
in the saddle and given to half stages. And to find a convoy to
Mittwalden, and thus mitigate the company of his own thoughts, the
Prince had to make favour with a certain party of wood-merchants from
various states of the empire, who had been drinking together somewhat
noisily at the far end of the apartment.

The night had already fallen when they took the saddle. The merchants
were very loud and mirthful; each had a face like a nor'-west moon; and
they played pranks with each other's horses, and mingled songs and
choruses, and alternately remembered and forgot the companion of their
ride. Otto thus combined society and solitude, hearkening now to their
chattering and empty talk, now to the voices of the encircling forest.
The star-lit dark, the faint wood airs, the clank of the horse-shoes
making broken music, accorded together and attuned his mind, and he was
still in a most equal temper when the party reached the top of that long
hill that overlooks Mittwalden.