John had become aristocratic in his views, without, however, ceasing to sympathise with the lower classes, and since about the year 1865 the nobility were fairly liberal in politics, condescending and popular for the time, he let himself be duped.

Fritz began to give him instructions how he should behave. One should not be cringing, he said, but be yielding; should not say all that one thought, for no one wished to know that; it was good if one could say polite things, without indulging in too gross flattery; one should converse, but not argue, above all things not dispute, for one never got the best of it. Fritz was certainly a wise youth. John thought the advice terribly hard, but stored it up in his mind. What he wanted to get was a salary, and perhaps the chance of a tour abroad to Rome or Paris with his pupils; that was the most he hoped for from his noble friends, and what he intended to aim at.

One Sunday he visited the wife of the baron, his future employer, as she was in the town. She seemed like the portrait of a mediæval lady; she had an aquiline nose, great brown eyes, and curled hair, which hung over her temples. She was somewhat sentimental, talked in a drawling manner, and with a nasal twang. John did not think her aristocratic, and the house was a poorer one than his own home, but they had, besides, an estate and a castle. However, she pleased him, for she had a certain resemblance to his mother. She examined him, talked with him, and let her ball of wool fall. John sprang up and gave it to her, with a self-satisfied air which seemed to say, "I can do that, for I have often picked up ladies' handkerchiefs." Her opinion of him after the examination was a favourable one, and he was engaged. On the morning of the day on which they were to leave the city he called again. The royal secretary, for so the gentleman of the house was called, was standing in his shirt-sleeves before the mirror and tying his cravat. He looked proud and melancholy, and his greeting was curt and cold. John took a seat uninvited, and tried to commence a conversation, but was not particularly successful in keeping it up, especially as the secretary turned his back to him, and gave only short answers.

"He is not an aristocrat," thought John; "he is a boor."

The two were antipathetic to each other, as two members of the lower class, who looked askance at each other in their clamber laboriously upwards.

The carriage was before the door; the coachman was in livery, and stood with his hat in his hand. The secretary asked John whether he would sit in the carriage or on the box, but in such a tone that John determined to be polite and to accept the invitation to sit on the box. So he sat next the coachman. As the whip cracked, and the horses started, he had only one thought, "Away from home! Out into the world!"