tic room, pleased to welcome such an "excellent person"--as he
had heard downstairs--to the fold of the family. But did they not
lead such dull, stagnant, imbecile lives, moored here in this
stodgy, out-of-the-world suburb, where so many idiots live who
wonder how the world can come to an end when it's round? Friedrich
truly hoped Herr Kirtley would not be bored to death.

To-day the musician had finished with his final military examination
and was at last free from ever having to serve. He made a diverting
story of it and had hastened to the Villa to recount the
congratulatory news.

"I had to report this morning for military service, just having got
back to Dresden. So I went to the Platz and there sat an officer as
big as a hogshead. And I hope not as full. He began treating me as
if I were a truant school boy. 'Stand up! Sit down! Stand up again!'
So the examination commenced. I knew I was not fit for the army. I
did not want to go. I hate it. But they were after me. He said:

"'Take off your glasses!' I removed them. He said:

"'What is that letter off there?' Mein Gott! it looked as far off as
Pillnitz. It was my left eye out of which I had seen nothing since I
was a baby.

"'I see nothing,' I said. He yelled:

"'You can!' Then I said:

"'I can't!' Then he roared out:

"'Why can't you?'

"'Because I am blind in it!' He glared at me as if I were a
perjurer.

"'It is blind and you can see nothing out of it?'

"And now I was getting out of patience with this blockhead. Blind
and can't see out of it! They put the blockheads in the army because
there is no other place for them. I think that must be the reason
why there are more synonyms for blockhead in the German language
than in any other--we have the largest army. I said:

"'Of course I can't see anything out of it because it's blind,
you---- ' I was just on the point of adding 'fool' when I stopped
myself in time. It was the military--the august _military_. One must
hold his peace before the magnificent military. He thought I was
cheating about my eye because I did not want to march to Moscow, to
Paris. And I don't want to march to Moscow or Paris. They're so far.

"So this stupid _Kerl_ took me over to a higher officer and still
another. They sat there as stiff and self-complacent as wooden
saints in a plaster church. They too shouted at me They were so
suspicious, although I had never had the pleasure of meeting any of
them before.

"'You say