Page:Stevenson - Prince Otto. A Romance.djvu/65

 have one near by for an adviser. I would set forward as prince a man of a good, medium understanding, lively rather than deep; a man of courtly manner, possessed of the double art to ingratiate and to command; receptive, accommodating, seductive. I have been observing you since your first entrance. Well, sir, were I a subject of Grünewald I should pray heaven to set upon the seat of government just such another as yourself.’

‘The devil you would!’ exclaimed the Prince.

The licentiate Roederer laughed most heartily. ‘I thought I should astonish you,’ he said. ‘These are not the ideas of the masses.’

‘They are not, I can assure you,’ Otto said.

‘Or rather,’ distinguished the licentiate, ‘not to-day. The time will come, however, when these ideas shall prevail.’

‘You will permit me, sir, to doubt it,’ said Otto.

‘Modesty is always admirable,’ chuckled the theorist. ‘But yet I assure you, a man like you, with such a man as, say, Doctor Gotthold at your elbow, would be, for all practical issues, my ideal ruler.’

At this rate the hours sped pleasantly for Otto. But the licentiate unfortunately slept that night at Beckstein, where he was, being dainty