But after we had learned what a jovial, indulgent comrade was hidden behind the iron tyrant who gazed so threateningly at us from the black eyes beneath the bushy brows, our timidity vanished, and at last we found it easy enough to induce him to change a resolute “No” into a yielding “Yes.”

His wife, on the contrary, was precisely his opposite, for she wielded the sceptre in the household with absolute sway, though so fragile a creature that it seemed as if a breath would blow her away.  No one could have been a more energetic housekeeper.  She was as active an assistant to her husband with her pen as with her tongue.  Most of my reports are in her writing.  Besides this, one pretty, healthy child after another was born, and she allowed herself but a brief time for convalescence.  I was the godfather of one of these babies, an honour shared by my school-mate, Von Lobenstein.  The baptismal ceremony was performed in the Boltze house.  The father and we were each to write a name on a slip of paper and lay it beside the font.  We had selected the oddest ones we could think of, and when the pastor picked up the slips he read Gerhard and Habakkuk.  Thanks to the care and wisdom of his excellent mother, the boy throve admirably in spite of his cognomen, and I heard to my great pleasure that he has become an able man.

This boyish prank is characteristic of our relations.  If we did not go too far, Frau Boltze always took our part, and understood how to smooth her husband’s frowning brow quickly enough.  Besides, it was a real pleasure to be on good terms with her, for, as the daughter of a prominent official, she had had an excellent education, and her quick wit did honour to her native city, Berlin.

Had Dr. Boltze performed his office of tutor with more energy, it would have been better for us; but in other respects I can say of him nothing but good.

The inventions he made in mechanics, I have been told by experts, were very important for the times and deserved greater success.  Among them was a coach moved by electricity.

My mother and I were cordially welcomed by this couple, on conversing with whom my first feeling of constraint vanished.

The examination next morning almost placed me higher than I expected, for the head-master who heard me translate at first thought me prepared for the first class; but Pro-Rector Braune, who examined me in Latin grammar, said that I was fitted only for the second.

When I left the examination hall I was introduced by Dr. Boltze to one of my future school-fellows in the person of an elegant young gentleman who had just alighted from a carriage and was patting the necks of the horses which he had driven himself.

I had supposed him to be a lieutenant in civilian’s dress, for his dark mustache, small whiskers, and the military cut of his hair, which already began to be somewhat thin, made me add a lustrum to his twenty-one years.