nds. There was hardly any
change in the composition of these circles, which was usually due
to similar length of service, but in certain cases they were held
together by some other bond. There was the Keyl-Moeller group of two
senior-lieutenants and a lieutenant, who were brothers-in-law in a
double sense, two Keyls having married two Fraeulein Moellers, and a
Moeller a Fraeulein Keyl. There was also the trio of musical officers,
one of whom sang and played the violin and also the French horn, while
the second was an excellent pianist, and the third only whistled, but
in a most artistic manner. Then, finally, there was the philosophic
group, to which little Lieutenant Dr. von Froeben gave the tone. He had
taken his doctor's degree in jurisprudence at Heidelberg, and had
recently become an officer, as during his year of military service he
had lost all taste for legal science. He bore his academic honours with
that dignity which often accompanies the unusual; he was considered
extremely up-to-date, and at times rather extravagant in his opinions.
Among his friends were two officers still very young, one of whom was
always reading Prevost and Maupassant; and the other blushingly
acknowledged himself to be the author of an ode, printed in a daily
newspaper, welcoming the troops just returned from China, among whom
had been Captain Madelung of the regiment.

Everything at the mess-house seemed to be just as of old; it seemed to
Reimers as if he had not been away for a day. He looked around him: all
were as before, the elder men, with thick moustaches and hair growing
thin in places, with the cares of a future command already on the brow;
those of his own age, easy-going and assuming nonchalant airs; and the
youngest of all very spick and span and extremely correct. Just as of
old the three brothers-in-law stood close together (two of them had in
the meantime become fathers, and the wife of Keyl II., _nee_ Moeller,
was in an interesting condition), and chatted about their various
uncles and aunts. As of yore, the singing, violin and horn-playing
Manitius was at the piano, turning over the leaves of a pianoforte
arrangement of the "Trompeter von Saekkingen." And again, as of old, the
little red-haired Dr. von Froeben held forth learnedly to every one who
would listen. There were only two new men who had entered the regiment
during his illness, and had just got their commissions as lieutenants.
One of them, Landsberg, had intr