y, I will bring him myself."

"No! Remain here."

He gave through the speaking-tube an order that the Priest should be
requested to come to him; then, turning again to Pranken, said,--

"And so you second the request? Most excellent! They sell blacks,
buying whites instead, and the whites become snow-white. They even
become saints."

"I do not understand you."

"Very likely. I am only pleased at the excellent arrangement of this
world. My young friend, I believe that the thing called virtue is
taught by means of a system in the Universities: they have a system of
morality. We, my young friend, will work out a system of criminality.
We will establish a chair in the University: Thousands of auditors will
come flocking around us, whom we alone can instruct in the Truth, the
real Truth. The world is magnificent! It must nominate me for the
professorship of worldly wisdom, which is a science differing widely
from the idea hitherto entertained of it. It is time that this moral
rouge should be rubbed off. I know, thus far, but one human being whom
I shall admit as my colleague into this faculty, and that one, alas! is
a woman; but we must overcome this prejudice also. Magnificent!"

"You have not yet told me whether you accede to the plan"--

"Have I not? My young friend, you cannot yet become a professor. You
are still a school-boy, learning the elements, the rudiments. I would
fain found a new Rome, and, as once the Rome of Antiquity was peopled
with a community of mere vagabonds, so I would fill my city from the
houses of correction. No nation can equal their inhabitants. They are
the really vigorous men."

"I do not understand you."

"You are right," said Sonnenkamp at last in a gentle tone. "We will be
very upright and discreet, very moral and delicate. My young friend, I
have something very different in view. The mouse-trap of your cathedral
dean is too clumsy for me. I shall not snap at this bait cooked in
lard."

Pranken was full of wrath. Sonnenkamp's manner of treating him like a
boy still in his school-jacket roused his indignation.

He stood up very straight, and looked down at himself from head to
foot, to see whether he were indeed a little boy. At last he said,
throwing back his head,--

"Respected father, I beg you to desist from this pleasantry."

"Pleasantry?"

"Yes. I have united myself to you--you cannot deny it--with a loyalty
that--I have wished to make you my equal in--no, I did not mea