And Henry's letters certainly were amusing. There was no frothy effusiveness, no cheap claptrap in them as is generally the way with students' productions, and for that very reason they were all the more genuinely interesting. They were full, indeed, of the comical adventures, without which a student's life is inconceivable, and no mystery was made of the scrapes and exploits which fell to his lot, but at the same time the distinctions which the two youths gained at the Sorbonne were duly enumerated.

It occurred to none of the guests to ask the reverend gentleman why he had sent his son to the Sorbonne instead of to Heidelberg, where Lutherans generally go to college.

But once when these scholastic testimonials were passing from hand to hand among the army of guests, an inquisitive guest remarked that in young Moskowski's testimonial he was described as "eminent" in such sciences as "mathematics," "geometry," "chemistry," and "mineralogy." What need, he added, had a Moskowski to grub about amongst such things as these. He was not going to be a miner, was he? Whereupon the reverend pastor, with philosophical composure and prophetic inspiration, replied: "A man never knows what sciences may be useful to him one day."

This was the vaccinatio spiritualis, the inoculation of the mind—against the infection of the serf distemper.

CHAPTER III
FACE TO FACE

The two youths spent two years in the foreign University. They studied together and they caroused together. They fought for each other, and they wrote each other's dissertations. When they spent all their money they wrote verses, and whichever of them was able to borrow a livre or two, always shared it with the other. And whenever the Philistines were too much for them they bolted into the next town.

Heinrich's last letter to his father was written from Utrecht. There both of them gained their promotio. Casimir became a baccalaureat of philosophy, Heinrich a doctor of medicine.

The Rev. Mr. Klausner told the Starosta that his little Heinrich had appropriated the new science, according to which doctors were no longer to plague their unfortunate patients with bitter draughts at the rate of a pint a dose; but went about with little white pillules, the size of millet seeds, in their pockets, and wrought marvellous cures on the principle of similia similibus.

"Very well," said the Starosta, "as your son Heinrich has become a doctor, I will make him my family physician, with a salary of 2000 thalers, on condition that he bleeds me in the first quarter of every month, and gives me some of his drugs. For I invented homœopathy before Herr Hahnemann, inasmuch as whenever wine gets into my head I drink still more to get it out again. That's my view of similia similibus. Tell your son what I say."

Gottlieb Klausner thereupon took up his pen and informed his son what a brilliant opening had thus come in his way at the very beginning of his career. He would be sure of a post as soon as ever he got home, with a nice salary of 2000 thalers. Moreover, he would ride in a carriage, and give his orders to the cook, for he would have to taste of every dish before it was presented to the Starosta, according to the wont of princes, lest they be poisoned in their meat or drink. How many a man would envy him such an office!