under his patronage, and to open the agricultural exhibition.
This Mayor bore the title of Agricultural Councillor, a fact of which Klaus Heinrich had been apprised, and on account of which he addressed him thus three times in his answer. He said that he was delighted that the work of the agricultural exhibition had prospered so famously under his patronage. (As a matter of fact he had forgotten that he was patron of the exhibition.) He had come to put the finishing touch that day to the great work, by opening the exhibition. Then he inquired as to four things: as to the economical circumstances of the city, the increase in the population in recent years, as to the labour-market (although he had no very clear idea what the labour-market was), and as to the price of victuals. When he heard that the price of victuals was high, he "viewed the matter in a serious light," and that of course was all he could do. Nobody expected anything more of him, and it came as a comfort to everybody that he had viewed the high prices in a serious light.
Then the Mayor presented the city dignitaries to him: the higher District Judge, a noble landed proprietor from the neighbourhood, the rector, the two doctors, and a forwarding agent, and Klaus Heinrich addressed a question to each, thinking over, while the answer came, what he should say to the next. The local veterinary surgeon and the local inspector of stock-breeding were also present. Finally they climbed into carriages, and drove, amid the cheers of the inhabitants, between fences of school-children, firemen, and patriotic societies, through the gaily decked city to the exhibition ground—not without being stopped once more at the gate by white-robed maidens with wreaths on their heads, one of whom, the Mayor's daughter, handed to the prince in his carriage a bouquet with white satin streamers, and in lasting memory of the moment received
