“Whence comes it then that I, who might undertake the government of a whole country, am yet perpetually under restraint in the conduct of my own private life, watched over and treated like an irresponsible boy?  It grieves me, Herr von Leuchtmar, to be forced to remind you that the time for my education is past, for I am not sixteen years old, but already several weeks advanced in my eighteenth year.”

“I thank your highness for this admonition,” replied the baron quietly, “and I confess that without it I should not have known that your education was finished.”

“Sir, you insult me!  So you still regard me as nothing but a boy?”

“No, your highness, as a man, and I believe that Socrates was right when he said, ’The education of man begins in the cradle and ends only in the grave.’”

“You know very well that he meant it in a widely different sense.  Our talk is not now of actual education, but of the relations of pupil and teacher.  The time of my pupilage is past, Sir Baron, and you will bear in mind, I beg, that I no longer sit in the schoolroom.”

“That, again, I did not know,” said Leuchtmar gently, “and again in my defense I cite the wise Socrates, who said, ’Man is learning his whole life long, to confess at last that the only certain knowledge he has attained is that he knows nothing.’”

“Maxims and maxims forever!” cried the Prince impatiently.  “You want to evade me—­you purposely misunderstand me.  Well, then, candidly speaking, I am sick and tired of being everlastingly found fault with, watched over, tutored and spied upon, and once for all I beg that a stop be put to all this.”

“Will your highness do me the favor to say who it is that finds fault with, watches over, tutors, and spies upon you?”

“Why, yes—­you, Baron Kalkhun von Leuchtmar, you and the private secretary Mueller, you two first and foremost do those very things.”

“Your highness, if we have allowed ourselves to find fault with you when you did not deserve it, it was very presumptuous; if we have watched over you and tutored you, surely that might be forgiven in former tutors and instructors; but if we have acted as spies upon you, then have we both degraded ourselves and become contemptible, and your highness may esteem it as my last tutoring if I advise you to remove so unworthy a couple of subjects forever from your presence.”

“You will lead me ad absurdum, Leuchtmar!” cried the Prince.  “You would prove to me that I am wrong and accuse you falsely.  But you are mistaken, sir; I only speak the truth.  One thing I ask you, though:  have you ever looked upon me as an ungrateful pupil, a disobedient scholar, an ill-natured, idle man?”

“No, never,” returned Leuchtmar cordially.  “No, your highness—­”

“Leave off those tiresome titles,” interrupted the Prince.  “Speak simply and to the point, without ceremony, as is becoming in serious moments, when man stands face to face with man.”