e was a lively young fellow, with a fresh, rosy face, a
flowing black beard and curly hair, rather beyond the regulation
length. He was of a handsome soldierly appearance, and contrasted well
with his wife, Lisbeth, a beautiful blonde, who with her slender figure
always looked like a young girl.

This fair woman was blindly in love with her husband. She almost
worshipped him, but he did not trouble himself much about her. He
regarded himself as a great artist, because in the choir concerts he
played the cornet solos, and always received much applause from the
female part of the audience, and he considered that his marriage alone
had prevented him from becoming a "celebrity." Once he had received a
passionate love letter, signed by "a lady of high degree, who deplored
with tears of blood" the dividing difference of rank between them. It
was transparently the coarse work of a practical joker; but Henke in
his conceit believed in the high-born heiress, and this dream quite
turned his head. He ever afterwards posed as a fine gentleman, ogled
all the elegant women of the town, and had hardly a glance left for his
wife. She worked and pinched for him in order that he might be able to
enjoy his aristocratic tastes, and thought herself happy because he
bore with her. And he was always urging her to work and earn money, as
he longed to become rich and be the equal of really fashionable people.

Gambling was to help him to this; besides, in itself it gave him
intense pleasure.

He was ready dressed to go out, and was only lingering before the
looking-glass, when he heard outside the signal-whistle with which
Heppner, his boon-companion, was accustomed to call him. He soon joined
the deputy sergeant-major in the street, and after a brief greeting the
two walked rapidly towards the town.

A few steps from the White Horse the trumpeter suddenly stopped, felt
in his pocket, and exclaimed, "Damnation! I've left my money behind at
home!"

"Never mind!" said Heppner, in his genial mood. "You shall eat and
drink free to-day, and I'll lend you a thaler into the bargain. There,
catch hold!"

He gave him the piece of money before they reached the door, and the
trumpeter rejoiced: borrowed money brought luck.

The landlord of the Horse had laid the table neatly in the little
parlour. The leavings of the previous evening had been freshly dished
up, and the barrel, which must still contain nearly forty litres of
beer, had been cooled