sioned officers to boast of; not for statesmen.
However, say that you are fit to govern Asiatics. Go on.'

'I would endeavour to equalize ranks at home, encourage the growth of
ideas...'

'Supporting a non-celibate clergy, and an intermingled aristocracy? Your
endeavours, my good young man, will lessen like those of the man who
employed a spade to uproot a rock. It wants blasting. Your married
clergy and merchandized aristocracy are coils: they are the ivy about
your social tree: you would resemble Laocoon in the throes, if one could
imagine you anything of a heroic figure. Forward.'

In desperation I exclaimed, 'It 's useless! I have not thought at all.
I have been barely educated. I only know that I do desire with all my
heart to know more, to be of some service.'

'Now we are at the bottom, then!' said he.

But I cried, 'Stay; let me beg you to tell me what you meant by calling
me a most fortunate, or a most unfortunate young man.'

He chuckled over his pipe-stem, 'Aha!'

'How am I one or the other?'

'By the weight of what you carry in your head.'

'How by the weight?'

He shot a keen look at me. 'The case, I suspect, is singular, and does
not often happen to a youth. You are fortunate if you have a solid
and adventurous mind: most unfortunate if you are a mere sensational
whipster. There 's an explanation that covers the whole. I am as much in
the dark as you are. I do not say which of us two has the convex eye.'

Protesting that I was unable to read riddles, though the heat of the one
in hand made my frame glow, I entreated to have explicit words. He might
be in Ottilia's confidence, probing me--why not? Any question he chose
to put to me, I said, I was ready to answer.

'But it's the questioner who unmasks,' said he.

'Are we masked, Herr Professor? I was not aware of it.'

'Look within, and avoid lying.'

He stood up. 'My nights,' he remarked, 'are not commonly wasted in this
manner. We Germans use the night for work.'

After a struggle to fling myself on his mercy and win his aid or
counsel, I took his hand respectfully, and holding it, said, 'I am
unable to speak out. I would if it involved myself alone.'

'Yes, yes, I comprehend; your country breeds honourable men, chivalrous
youngsters,' he replied. 'It 's not enough--not enough. I want to see a
mental force, energy of brain. If you had that, you might look as high
as you liked for the match for it, with my consent. Do you hear? What I
w