"What high honor!" said Knips, pitifully, drawing out his pocket-handkerchief.
"As regards the lost manuscript," continued the Sovereign, "the stay of Mr. Werner will, I fear, be only temporary. The task of pursuing the investigations in our country would, in that event, fall upon you."
Knips raised his head, and a ray of pleasure passed over his troubled face.
"If the manuscript is, in fact, as valuable as the learned gentlemen seem to think, then in case, after the departure of the Professor, there is still something to discover, you will have found with us an occupation which is especially suited to you."
"This prospect is the highest and most honorable which my life can attain to," replied Knips, more courageously.
"Good," said the Sovereign; "endeavor to deserve this claim, and try first what your dexterity can do."
"I will take pains to serve your Highness," replied the Magister, his eyes cast on the ground.
Knips left the private apartment. The little man, who now descended the staircase, looked very different from the happy Magister who a few minutes before had ascended it. His pale face was bent forward, and his eyes wandered furtively over the faces of the servants, who watched him inquisitively. He seized his hat mechanically, and he, the Magister, put it on his head while still in the royal castle. He went out into the court; the storm swept through the streets, whirled the dust round him, and blew his coat-tails forward.
"He drives me on; how can I withstand him?" murmured Knips. "Shall I return to my proof-sheets in that cold room? Shall I all my life depend on the favor of professors, always in anxiety lest an accident should betray to these learned men that I once overreached them and derided them?
"But here I pass a pleasant life, and have opportunities of being the cleverest among the ignorant and making myself indispensable to them! I am so already; the Sovereign has shown himself to me as one comrade does to another, and he can, if I do as he wishes, as little part from me as the parchment from the writing on it."