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Klaus Heinrich spent three of his boyhood's years in the company of boys of his own age of the Court and country nobility of the monarchy in an institution, a kind of aristocratic seminary, which von Knobelsdorff, the House Minister, had founded and set in order on his behalf in the “Pheasantry” hunting-schloss.

A Crown property for centuries past, Schloss “Pheasantry” gave its name to the first stopping-place of a State railway running north-west from the capital, and itself took it from a “tame” pheasant preserve, situated not far off among the meadows and woods, which had been the hobby of a former ruler. The Schloss, a one-storied box-like country house with a shingle roof topped by lightning conductors, stood with stables and coach-house on the skirts of extensive fir plantations. With a row of aged lime trees in front, it looked out over a broad expanse of meadowland fringed by a distant bluish circle of woods and intersected by paths, with many a bare patch of play-ground and hurdles for obstacle riding. Opposite the corner of the Schloss was a refreshment pavilion, a beer and coffee garden planted with high trees, which a prudent man called Stavenüter had rented and which was thronged on Sundays in summer by excursionists, especially bicyclists, from the capital. The pupils of the “Pheasantry” were only allowed to visit the pavilion in charge of a tutor.

There were five of them, not counting Klaus Heinrich: Trümmerhauff, Gumplach, Platow, Prenzlau, and Wehrzahn. They were called “the Pheasants” in the country round. They had a landau from the Court stables which had seen its best days, a dog-cart, a sledge, and a few hacks, and when in winter some of the meadows were flooded and frozen over, they had an opportunity of skating. There was one cook, two chamber-maids, one coachman, and two lackeys at the “Pheasantry,” one of whom could drive at a pinch.

Professor Kürtchen, a little suspicious and irritable bachelor with the airs of a comic actor and the manners of an old French chevalier, was head of the seminary. He wore a stubby grey moustache, a pair of gold spectacles in front of his restless brown eyes, and always out-of-doors a top hat on the back of his head. He stuck his belly out as he walked and held his little fists on each side of his stomach like a long-distance runner. He treated Klaus Heinrich with self-satisfied tact, but was full of suspicion of the noble arrogance of his other pupils and fired up like a tom-cat when he scented any signs of contempt for him as a commoner. He loved when out for a walk, if there were people close by, to stop and gather his pupils in a knot around him and explain something to them, drawing diagrams in the sand with his stick. He addressed Frau Amelung, the housekeeper, a captain's widow who smelt strongly of drugs, as “my lady” and showed thus that he knew what was what in the best circles.

Professor Kürtchen was helped by a yet younger assistant teacher with a doctor's degree—a good-humoured, energetic man, bumptious but enthusiastic, who influenced Klaus Heinrich's views and conscience perhaps more than was good for him. A gymnastic instructor called Zotte had also been appointed. The assistant teacher, it may be remarked in passing, was called Ueberbein, Raoul Ueberbein. The rest of the staff came every day by railway from the capital.

Klaus Heinrich remarked with appreciation that the demands made on him from the point of view of learning quickly abated. Schulrat Dröge's wrinkled fore-finger no longer paused on the lines, he had done his work; and during the lessons as well as while correcting his written work Professor Kürtchen seized every opportunity of showing his tact.

One day, quite soon after the institution had started—it was after luncheon in the high-windowed dining-room—he summoned Klaus Heinrich into his study, and said in so many words: “It is contrary to the public interest that your Grand Ducal Highness, during our scientific studies together, should be compelled to answer questions which are at the moment unwelcome to you. On the other hand, it is desirable that your Grand Ducal Highness should continually announce your readiness to answer by holding up your hand. I beg your Grand Ducal Highness accordingly, for my own information, in the case of unwelcome questions, to stretch out your arm to its full length, but in the case of those an invitation to answer which would be agreeable to you, to raise it only half way and in a right angle.”

As for Doctor Ueberbein, he filled the schoolroom with a noisy flow of words, whose cheerfulness disguised the teacher's object without losing sight of it altogether. He had come to no sort of understanding with Klaus Heinrich, but questioned him when it occurred to him to do so, in a free and friendly way without causing him any embarrassment. And Klaus Heinrich's by no means apropos answers seemed to enchant Doctor Ueberbein, to inspire him with warm enthusiasm. “Ha, ha,” he would cry and throw his head back laughing. “Oh, Klaus Heinrich! Oh, scion of princes! Oh, your innocency! The crude problems of life have caught you unprepared! Now then, it is for me with my experience to put you straight.” And he gave the answer himself, asked nobody else, when Klaus Heinrich had answered wrong. The mode of instruction of the other teachers bore the character of an unassuming lecture. And gymnastic-instructor Zotte had received orders from high quarters to conduct the physical exercises with every regard to Klaus Heinrich's left hand—so strictly that the attention of the Prince himself or of his companions should never be drawn unnecessarily to his little failing. So the exercises were limited to running games, and during the riding lessons, which Herr Zotte also gave, all feats of daring were rigorously excluded.

Klaus Heinrich's relations with his comrades were not what one might call intimate, they did not extend to actual familiarity. He stood for himself, was never one of them, by no means counted amongst their number. They were five and he was one; the Prince, the five, and the teachers, that was the establishment. Several things stood in the way of a free friendship. The five were there on Klaus Heinrich's account, they were ordered to associate with him; when during the lessons he answered wrong they were not asked to correct him, they had to adjust themselves to his capacity when riding or playing. They were too often reminded of the advantages they gained by being allowed to share his life. Some of them, the young von Gumplach, von Platow, and von Wehrzahn, sons of country squires of moderate means, were oppressed the whole time by the gratified pride their parents had shown when the invitation from the House Minister reached them, by the congratulations which had poured in from every side.

Count Prenzlau on the other hand, that thick-set, red-haired, freckled youth with the breathless way of speaking and the Christian name Bogumil, was a sprig of the richest and noblest family of landowners in the land, spoilt and self-conscious. He was well aware that his parents had not been able to refuse Baron von Knobelsdorff's invitation, but that it had not seemed to them by any means a blessing from the clouds, and that he, Count Bogumil, could have lived much better and more in accordance with his position on his father's property than at the “Pheasantry.” He found the hacks bad, the landau shabby, and the dog-cart old-fashioned; he grumbled privately over the food.

Dagobert Count Trümmerhauff, a spare, greyhound-looking youth, who spoke in a whisper, was inseparable from him. They had a word among themselves which fully expressed their critical and aristocratic bent, and which they constantly uttered in a biting tone of voice: “hog-wash.” It was hog-wash to have loose collars buttoning on to one's shirt. It was hog-wash to play lawn-tennis in one's ordinary clothes.

But Klaus Heinrich felt himself unequal to using the word. He had not hitherto been aware that there were such things as shirts with collars sewed on to them and that people could possess so many changes of clothes at one time as Bogumil Prenzlau. He would have liked to say “hog-wash,” but it occurred to him that he was wearing at that very time darned socks. He felt inelegant by the side of Prenzlau and coarse compared with Trümmerhauff. Trümmerhauff had the nobility of a wild beast. He had a long pointed nose with a sharp bridge and broad, quivering, thin-walled nostrils, blue veins on his delicate temples and small ears without lobes. He wore broad coloured cuffs fastened with gold links, and his hands were like those of a dainty woman, with filbert nails; a gold bracelet adorned one of his wrists. He half closed his eyes as he whispered. … No, it was obvious that Klaus Heinrich could not compete with Trümmerhauff in elegance. His right hand was rather broad, he had cheek-bones like the men in the street, and he looked quite stumpy by Dagobert's side. It was quite possible that Albrecht might have been better qualified to join the “Pheasants” in their use of “hog-wash.” Klaus Heinrich for his part was no aristocrat, absolutely none, unmistakable facts showed that. For consider his name, Klaus Heinrich, that's what the shoemaker's sons were called all over the place. Herr Stavenüter's children over the road too, who blew their noses with their fingers, bore the same names as himself, his parents, and his brother. But the lordlings were called Bogumil and Dagobert—Klaus Heinrich stood solitary and alone among the five.

However, he formed one friendship at the “Pheasantry,” and it was with Doctor Ueberbein. The Usher Raoul Ueberbein was not a handsome man. He had a red beard and a greenish-white complexion with watery blue eyes, thin red hair, and unusually ugly, protruding, sharp-pointed ears. But his hands were small and delicate. He wore white ties exclusively, which gave him rather a distinguished appearance, although his wardrobe was scanty. He wore a long great-coat out-of-doors, and when riding—for Dr. Ueberbein rode, and excellently well too—a worn-out frock-coat whose skirts he fastened up with safety-pins, tight buttoned breeches, and a high hat.