for the exercise of his calling exhausted him in a strange degree, and that afternoon he was due not only to visit in that city the church, the school, and various factories, especially Behnke Brothers' cheese factory, and to express high satisfaction with everything, but also to extend his journey and visit a scene of disaster, a burnt-out village, in order to express to the villagers his brother's and his own sympathy, and to cheer the afflicted by his exalted presence.
When he got back to the "Hermitage," to his soberly furnished Empire room, he read the newspaper accounts of his expeditions. Then Privy Councillor Schustermann of of the Press Bureau, which was under the Home Secretary, appeared in the "Hermitage," and brought the extracts from the papers, cleanly pasted on white sheets, dated and labelled with the name of the paper. And Klaus Heinrich read about the impression he had produced, read about his personal graciousness and Highness, read that he had acquitted himself nobly and taken the hearts of young and old by storm—that he had raised the minds of the people out of the ruck of every-day and filled them with gladness and affection.
And then he gave free audiences in the Old Schloss, as it had been arranged.
The custom of free audiences had been introduced by a well-meaning ancestor of Albrecht II, and the people clung to it. Once every week Albrecht, or Klaus in his place, was accessible to everybody. Whether the petitioner was a man of rank or not, whether the subject of his petitions were of a public or personal nature—he had only to give in his name to Herr von Bühl, or even the aide-de-camp on duty, and he was given an opportunity of bringing his matter to notice in the highest quarters.
Indeed an admirable custom! For it meant that the
