The names of virtues exercise a charm on most of us; we must lay claim to all of them, however incompatible; we must all be both daring and prudent; we must all vaunt our pride and go to the stake for our humility. Not so you. Without compromise you were yourself: a pretty sight. I have always said it: none so void of all pretence as Otto.’
‘Pretence and effort both!’ cried Otto. ‘A dead dog in a canal is more alive. And the question, Gotthold, the question that I have to face is this: Can I not, with effort and self-denial, can I not become a tolerable sovereign?’
‘Never,’ replied Gotthold. ‘Dismiss the notion. And besides, dear child, you would not try.’
‘Nay, Gotthold, I am not to be put by,’ said Otto. ‘If I am constitutionally unfit to be a sovereign, what am I doing with this money, with this palace, with these guards? And I—a thief—am to execute the law on others?’
‘I admit the difficulty,’ said Gotthold.
‘Well, can I not try?’ continued Otto. ‘Am I not bound to try? And with the advice and help of such a man as you’
‘Me!’ cried the librarian. ‘Now, God forbid!’
Otto, though he was in no very smiling humour, could not forbear to smile. ‘Yet I
