Herr von Leuchtmar bowed and withdrew to the antechamber.  A quarter of an hour, however, had hardly elapsed before the chamberlain issued from the Prince’s sleeping apartment, and announced to Herr Kalkhun von Leuchtmar, that breakfast was served, and that his highness, the Electoral Prince, awaited the baron’s attendance at this meal in his drawing room.  Herr von Leuchtmar hastened to obey the summons, and to repair to the Prince’s drawing room.  Frederick William seemed not at all conscious of his entrance.  He sat on the divan sipping his chocolate, and at the same time restlessly playing with the greyhound that lay at his feet, looking up at him with its gentle, truthful eyes.  Herr von Leuchtmar seated himself opposite the Prince, and took his breakfast in silent reserve.  Once the Prince’s eye scanned the noble, serious countenance of his former tutor, and the expression of perfect repose resting there seemed to pique and irritate him.  He jumped up and several times walked briskly up and down the room.  Then he paused before Leuchtmar, who had likewise risen, and whose large, dark-blue eyes were turned upon the Prince in gentle sorrow.

“Leuchtmar,” said the latter, shortly and quickly, “all is not between us as it should be.”

“I have remarked it for some time with pain,” replied the baron softly.  “Your highness is out of humor.”

“No, I am discontented!” cried the Prince; “and, by heavens, I have a right to be!”

“Will your highness have the kindness to tell me why you are discontented?”

“Yes, I will tell you, for you must know it in order that you may endeavor to alter it.  I am discontented, Leuchtmar, because you and Mueller will never forget that I have owed respect to you as my teachers.”

“Prince,” said the baron, lifting his head a little higher—­“Prince, have we two behaved ourselves so as no longer to deserve your respect?”

“Respect, indeed; but you confound respect with obedience, and wish me to obey you unreservedly, as if I were still a boy, subject to his teachers.”

“While now you would say you are a Prince arrived at years of majority, who no longer needs a teacher, and whose earlier preceptors are now only his subjects, dependent upon him.”

“No, I would not say that; and it is exceedingly obliging in you to carry your guardianship so far as even to interpret what I would say.  Meanwhile, you have made a remark which claims my attention.  You said that I was a Prince in my majority?”

“Certainly, your highness, you are a major in so far as the laws of the electoral house of Brandenburg allow the Electoral Prince, in case of his father’s death, if he has attained his sixteenth year, to assume the reins of government, independent of governor or regent.”

“Consequently, if my father were to die (which God forbid!) I might administer the government independently, in my own right?”

“Independently and in your own right, your highness.”