arrison air suit
you?"

"So-so. And you? How will you like this after Berlin?"

"Oh, all right, I think. If not----Well, we shall see."

For a while the friends were silent; then Guentz was about to speak,
when Reimers interrupted him.

"But I must ask you, above all things, how is your wife, and where is
she now?"

Guentz looked at him smiling. "She is very well, thanks, and is at the
moment with her brother, a parson in Thuringia. But you don't ask after
my boy!"

"What? Have you got one?"

"Rather! A fat little cub, as round as a bullet. Ten weeks old. You
must help us christen him."

"Guentz, you should have told me."

"Told you what, my son?"

"That you were a father."

"Why, there was time enough. Anyhow, it was in the _Weekly Military_.
So it is your own fault if you didn't know. But will you be godfather?"

"Of course, of course, gladly."

"Then next Saturday afternoon at five. Morning dress."

Reimers laughed gaily.

"Since when have you taken to talking like a telegram, Guentz? Are words
expensive in Berlin?"

"Expensive? Pooh! Cheap, cheap! A hundred thou-sand for a farthing,"
broke out the new arrival, with somewhat unaccountable fierceness. His
open, friendly face suddenly darkened and took on a grim, bitter
expression.

"Well," he said, as they parted, "we shall meet again, very often, I
hope. So long, old chap!"

In fact, Reimers became a constant guest at the Guentzes'. He feared at
times that he came too often.

"Guentz, old boy," he said, "tell me frankly, am I not a nuisance?"

"How so?" asked his host, sitting up in his easy chair.

"I am afraid I come too often."

Guentz knocked the ash off the end of his cigar, and reassured him; "No,
certainly not, old chap. If you did I should not hesitate to tell you."

So it came about that every Sunday at mid-day, and on every Wednesday
evening, Reimers found himself at the dinner-table of the snug little
villa, Waisenhaus Strasse No. 57.

Frau Klaere Guentz, a little lady with a fresh, pretty face, and bright,
clever eyes, called these her "at home" days.

"You see, Fatty," she said to her husband, "I am trying to follow in
the footsteps of Frau Lischke."

She lifted her eyebrows and went on, sarcastically: "When you have only
been a governess you have to be so very careful. And it's difficult!
Sometimes I have my doubts whether I shall ever attain to the standard
of Gustava Lischke."

She sighed comically and nodded at