nd carry the plates into the kitchen.
An old woman came every morning to do the housework and prepare the
midday meal, and every afternoon the turnpike keeper waited with
repressed impatience till the door had closed behind her. Then he felt
better.

When Franz had put the sausage in his box and come downstairs again,
he found his father with cap in hand, ready to go out.

"Come, boy," he said, "let's stretch our legs a bit."

They went past the village, and wandered for a while in silence
under the starry heavens. Then the old man began to speak less briskly
and decidedly than was his wont.

"Look you, my boy, to-morrow you will be standing on your own feet,
as it were; you'll be responsible for yourself. For it's like this:
before one has served one is a silly youth: but afterwards, a man.
Therefore you want something that you can steer by; and I tell you,
you must make a rule for yourself that you can look to. The printed
ones--they're only just by the way. Always ask yourself: is it right,
is it honest, what you're doing? If yes, then fire away! And when you
don't know exactly one way or the other, then just think: could you
tell your old father about it and look him straight in the eyes?"

He had a heavy load of cares and hopes on his mind for the welfare
of this son, the only thing left him to love; but he broke short off.
He felt himself incapable of expressing clearly the result of the
experience gained during his sixty years of life. He lived himself by
that gathered wisdom, and it had passed into his flesh and bone; but
the right words failed him when he would have imparted it to his son.

Friedrich August Vogt and his twin sister had been born in 1840, the
little-prized children of an unmarried mother, who had vanished one day
and left no trace. Probably she had died in a ditch. The children were
taken into an orphanage, on leaving which the girl had gone to service,
while the boy had become a soldier and climbed the ladder of promotion
to the rank of sergeant, receiving the silver medal for bravery, and at
St. Privat the iron cross. In command over others he proved strict and
just; and though assuming an outwardly harsh, bearish manner, he looked
after those who were under him with indefatigable and almost fatherly
care. His whole endeavour throughout those fifteen years had been to
stand blameless, not only in the eyes of his superiors, but, what was
more important still, in his own.

His comrades