'I have the gratification of addressing a student - perhaps an

author?' Otto suggested.

The young man somewhat flushed. 'I have some claim to both

distinctions, sir, as you suppose,' said he; 'there is my card. I

am the licentiate Roederer, author of several works on the theory

and practice of politics.'

'You immensely interest me,' said the Prince; 'the more so as I

gather that here in Grunewald we are on the brink of revolution.

Pray, since these have been your special studies, would you augur

hopefully of such a movement?'

'I perceive,' said the young author, with a certain vinegary twitch,

'that you are unacquainted with my opuscula. I am a convinced

authoritarian. I share none of those illusory, Utopian fancies with

which empirics blind themselves and exasperate the ignorant. The

day of these ideas is, believe me, past, or at least passing.'

'When I look about me - ' began Otto.

'When you look about you,' interrupted the licentiate, 'you behold

the ignorant. But in the laboratory of opinion, beside the studious

lamp, we begin already to discard these figments. We begin to

return to nature's order, to what I might call, if I were to borrow

from the language of therapeutics, the expectant treatment of

abuses. You will not misunderstand me,' he continued: 'a country in

the condition in which we find Grunewald, a prince such as your

Prince Otto, we must explicitly condemn; they are behind the age.

But I would look for a remedy not to brute convulsions, but to the

natural supervenience of a more able sovereign. I should amuse you,

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