"Will you learn from him, gracious sir?" cried Burgsdorf passionately, "would you go to school to him, to that Catholic, that Imperialist?" "Tell me a better schoolmaster for my father's son?" asked the Electoral Prince softly. "My father has bestowed full confidence upon him for these twenty years past, he has adhered firmly and faithfully to him in evil as well as in prosperous days, and therefore I conclude that the count is worthy of this unshaken confidence, and must well deserve his master's love. It would, therefore, be very disrespectful behavior on my part toward my father, and put me in the light of exalting myself against him in unchildlike disobedience, if I should make the attempt to remove Count Schwarzenberg from his side by force. The Elector alone is reigning Sovereign within his own dominions, and what he concludes must be good, and it does not become us to censure or presume to know better." "Your grace, then, will be nothing but an obedient and submissive son?" asked Burgsdorf in a cutting tone. "Nothing further, Burgsdorf," replied Frederick William quietly. "May my father yet live to rule long years in peace; I am still young, I am learning and waiting." "You are learning and waiting," cried Burgsdorf, beside himself, "and meanwhile your land is going wholly to ruin; the people are hungry and in despair; the noblemen are reduced to beggary or have, in their desperation, gone over to Schwarzenberg--that is to say, to the Emperor--who pays a rich annuity to each one who adheres faithfully to him. And when your grace has waited and learned enough, then will come the day when Count Schwarzenberg will hunt you from your heritage, even as he has hunted the Margrave of Jägerndorf; then will the Emperor give the Mark Brandenburg away, as he has done with Jägerndorf, and his favorite, Schwarzenberg, is here ready to receive the welcome donation. He has already ruled the Mark Brandenburg twenty years in the Emperor's name, why should he not rule the Mark as its independent Sovereign? Oh, gracious sir, it makes me raving mad just to think of it, and I can not believe that you are in earnest, that you actually thrust from you myself and those loyal to you, and will not enter into our plans. My dear Prince, I have known you all your life. I have carried you in my arms as a little boy; I have borne you under my cloak when you went with your mother to Küstrin; I have staked upon you all the hopes of my life; and it would be a bitter grief to me to be obliged to think that you will have nothing to do with me and all your friends." "And think you, man," asked the Electoral Prince, "that it would be no grief to my father if I should step forward as his adversary? Think you that it would make for him a good name in history should the son present himself as his father's enemy? No, Burgsdorf; I repeat it to you, I am learning and waiting."