Anyhow Ueberbein obtained leave from the Latin school, and went first of all alone, in the capacity of billeter, on a visit to the famous student town, within whose walls Klaus Heinrich was destined to pass the year of his apprenticeship, and on his return he was received in audience by Excellency von Knobelsdorff, the Minister of the Grand Ducal House, to receive the usual instructions. Their tenour was that almost the most important object of this year was to establish traditions of comradeship on the common ground of academic freedom between the Prince and the student corps, especially in the interests of the dynasty--the regulation phrases, which Herr von Knobelsdorff rattled off almost casually, and which Doctor Ueberbein listened to with a silent bow, while he drew his mouth, and with it his red beard, a little to one side. Then followed Klaus Heinrich's departure with his mentor, a dogcart and a servant or two, for the university. A glorious year, full of the charm of artistic freedom, in the public eye and in the mirror of public report--yet without technical importance of any kind. Misgivings which had been felt in some quarters that Doctor Ueberbein, through mistaking and misunderstanding the position, might worry the Prince with excessive demands in the direction of objective science, proved unfounded. On the contrary, it was obvious that the doctor quite realized the difference between his own earnest, and his pupil's exalted, sphere of existence. On the other hand (whether it was the mentor's or the Prince's own fault does not matter) the freedom and the unconstrained camaraderie, like the instruction, were interpreted in a very relative and symbolical sense so that neither the one nor the other, neither the knowledge nor the freedom, could be said to be the essence and peculiarity of the year. Its essence and peculiarity were rather, as it appeared, the year in itself, as the embodiment of custom and impressive ceremoniousness, to which Klaus Heinrich deferred, just as he had deferred to the theatrical rites on his last birthday--only now not with a purple cloak, but occasionally wearing a coloured student's cap, the so-called "Stürmer," in which he was portrayed in a photograph issued at once by the _Courier_ to its readers. As to his studies, his matriculation was not marked by any particular festivities, though some reference was made to the honour which Klaus Heinrich's admission bestowed on the university, and the lectures he attended began with the address: "Grand Ducal Highness!" He drove in his dogcart with a groom from the pretty green-clad villa, which the Marshal of his father's household had leased for him in a select and not too expensive square, amid the remarks and greetings of the passers-by, to the lectures, and there he sat with the consciousness that the whole thing was unessential and unnecessary for his exalted calling, yet with a show of courteous attention.