Not of a Roman virtue,' chuckled the recluse.

Otto drew his chair nearer to the table, leaned upon it with his elbow,
and looked his cousin squarely in the face. 'In short,' he asked, 'not
manly?'

'Well,' Gotthold hesitated, 'not manly, if you will.' And then, with a
laugh, 'I did not know that you gave yourself out to be manly,' he added.
'It was one of the points that I inclined to like about you; inclined, I
believe, to admire. The names of virtues exercise a charm on most of us;
we must lay claim to all of them, however incompatible; we must all be
both daring and prudent; we must all vaunt our pride and go to the stake
for our humility. Not so you. Without compromise you were yourself: a
pretty sight. I have always said it: none so void of all pretence as
Otto.'

'Pretence and effort both!' cried Otto. 'A dead dog in a canal is more
alive. And the question, Gotthold, the question that I have to face is
this: Can I not, with effort and self-denial, can I not become a
tolerable sovereign?'

'Never,' replied Gotthold. 'Dismiss the notion. And besides, dear
child, you would not try.'

'Nay, Gotthold, I am not to be put by,' said Otto. 'If I am
constitutionally unfit to be a sovereign, what am I doing with this
money, with this palace, with these guards? And I--a thief--am to
execute the law on others?'

'I admit the difficulty,' said Gotthold.

'Well, can I not try?' continued Otto. 'Am I not bound to try? And with
the advice and help of such a man as you--'

'Me!' cried the librarian. 'Now, God forbid!'

Otto, though he was in no very smiling humour, could not forbear to
smile. 'Yet I was told last night,' he laughed, 'that with a man like me
to impersonate, and a man like you to touch the springs, a very possible
government could be composed.'

'Now I wonder in what diseased imagination,' Gotthold said, 'that
preposterous monster saw the light of day?'

'It was one of your own trade--a writer: one Roederer,' said Otto.

'Roederer! an ignorant puppy!' cried the librarian.

'You are ungrateful,' said Otto. 'He is one of your professed admirers.'

'Is he?' cried Gotthold, obviously impressed. 'Come, that is a good
account of the young man. I must read his stuff again. It is the rather
to his credit, as our views are opposite. The east and west are not more
opposite. Can I have converted him? But no; the incident belongs to
Fairyland.'

'You are not then,' asked the Prince, 'an