ow him to be in the right. For these zoological
comparisons were strictly forbidden. An inquiry had been held about the
sergeant's conduct, and then such a crowd of other "oxen," "pigs," and
"donkeys," had appeared in the witness-box, that the commanding officer
of the battery had felt quite giddy, and the presiding judge had
perpetrated the cheap witticism that the entire German army might have
been fed for a month on the cattle that the defendant had bullied into
existence. He, Wegstetten, had hardly been in a humour to enjoy the
joke, when the senior major (that detestable Lischke, in whose bad
books he already stood), who was commanding the regiment during the
colonel's absence on leave, had taken him aside and lectured him about
the rough tone that seemed to prevail in the sixth battery. Wegstetten
had taken it much to heart, and as he made the stiff little bow that
formality prescribed, he had sworn a grim oath that never, no, never,
should such a sickening business occur again in his battery. To have
affairs like this connected with one's name had been for many the
beginning of the end. And he was ambitious; he meant to go far.

He turned once more to the sergeant-major. "But it will be all right,"
he said, "at any rate so long as I have you, Schumann. I can depend on
you. God knows, I should be pretty furious if you thought of deserting
the colours."

The sergeant-major looked somewhat embarrassed: "Forgive me, sir. I
shall have seen eighteen years' service come Easter; and however glad I
might be to stop on, still--a man ought to provide for his old age.
Schmidt, of the fourth battery, left four years ago, and he's got a
good post as assistant station-master."

Wegstetten reassured him: "You mustn't think I was serious, Schumann. I
know better than any one what you've gone through and what I have to
thank you for, and I shall wish you good luck with all my heart when
you go. But you must feel for me, and understand how hard it will be
for me to do with-out you. If I only knew who could take your place!"

The sergeant-major shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, speak out; you know the men better even than I do."

Schumann hesitated a little, and then said: "You know yourself, sir;
Heppner is the next in seniority."

"Of course," said Wegstetten rather testily, "I know that. But I know,
too, that you have something in your mind against him. What's the
matter with Heppner? Isn't he steady in his work and first-ra