you are blind in one eye and can't see out of it?'

"I screamed, 'No, no, no!' They thought I might be going insane.
They examined my eye, my glasses, and tried all kinds of tests to
try to fool my poor eye. But it remained my faithful friend, and
they were mad. And I was just as mad and ready to shriek at
them--'Blind! Blind! Blind!' I was losing half a day for nothing
over their stupidities.

"Then the _Dummkopfen_ began to enter it up on their official
blotters. That seemed to take forever too. I was nearly exhausted.
They solemnly wrote me down as blind in one eye and cannot see out
of it. And at last, Gott sei Dank! they let me go, glowering at me
as if they were still sure I was somehow tricking them. And here I
am--alive!"

Friedrich's ludicrous recital, embellished by a hundred gestures and
poses, had raised a guffaw even in Villa Elsa.

Chapter XVI

A LIVELY MUSICIAN

Gard discovered that such mockery or berating of military officials,
with whom the ordinary public came in servile contact, was rather
common in Germany in spite of the universal adoration of the army.

Intermixed with Friedrich's take-off were his moments of "the grand
manner," appropriate to a musical director who is born to command
fickle or imperious singers and musicians. He was naturally an
actor. His refreshing mimicries amused Gard. Against the bovine
background of the Villa Elsa circle, he stood out in relief as an
enlivening figure with flitting phases of elegance.

He was clever, talented. He spun off a lot of new music at the
piano, much of it coming from his own pen. Elsa hung absorbed over
the wing of the instrument. Friedrich, of about Kirtley's age but
adequately equipped and ambitious, was aspiring to some one of the
dignified thrones in the musical kingdom of Germany. Gard was only
just hatching out as a man. He was essentially but a lad grown up.
Von Tielitz showed already a wholly developed maturity. German
instruction again versus American education!

Friedrich was better versed in English than the Bucher children. He
paid two calls on Gard that first day. Talking Anglo-Saxon was good
practice. On the second call he discharged a missile that struck
Kirtley near the heart, and gave him a feeling of faintness.

"Don't you like Elsa?" Von Tielitz whipped out with no preamble.
"She is really a nice girl, a very nice girl. Her family thinks we
are to marry. Well, perhaps. I don't know. Sometimes I think yes.
S