What a charming sight it was! There he leaned, half-sitting on the slope of the glazed-brick wall, with his feet crossed, and his left hand thrust far behind on his hips, with the fifteen members of the first class in a half-circle round him. There were only fifteen this year, for the last promotions had been made with the object in view that the select should contain no elements which were unfitted by origin or personality to be for a year on Christian-name terms with Klaus Heinrich. For the use of Christian names was ordered. Klaus Heinrich conversed with one of them, who had advanced a little towards him out of the semicircle, and answered him with little short bows. Both laughed, everybody laughed directly they began to talk to Klaus Heinrich. He asked him for instance: "Have you yet done your German essay for next Tuesday?"
"No, Prince Klaus Heinrich, not quite yet; I haven't yet done the last part."
"It's a difficult subject. I haven't any idea yet what to write."
"Oh, your Highness will.... You'll soon think of something!"
"No, it's difficult.... You got an alpha in arithmetic, didn't you?"
"Yes, Prince Klaus Heinrich, I was lucky."
"No, you deserved it. I shall never be able to make anything of it!"
Murmurs of amusement and gratification in the semicircle. Klaus Heinrich turned to another schoolfellow, and the first stepped quickly back. Everybody felt that the really important point was not the essay nor the arithmetic, but the conversation as an event and an undertaking, one's attitude and tone, the way one advanced or retired, the success with which one assumed a sympathetic, self-collected, and refined demeanour. Perhaps it was the consciousness of this which brought the smile to everybody's lips.
Sometimes, when he had the semicircle in front of him, Klaus Heinrich would say some such words as "Professor Nicolovius looks an owl."
Great then was the merriment among the others. Such a remark was the signal for general unbending, they kicked over the traces, "Ho, ho, ho!" 'd in chorus in their newly cracked voices, and one would declare Klaus Heinrich to be a "ripping chap." But Klaus Heinrich did not often say such things, he only said them when he saw the smile on the others' faces grow faint and wan, and signs of boredom or even of impatience showing themselves; he said them by way of cheering them up, and at the extravagant laughter by which they were followed he wore a look half of curiosity, half of dismay.