rother from time to time, to see if he,
too, had some one to walk with. That he prompted his brother in class
and allowed him to copy from himself when sight-exercises were dictated
was all a matter of course; but he also took care that no one teased
his brother, and when he observed him quietly from the side, as he often
did, without drawing his brother's attention to it, then his little face
was quite noticeably sad, almost as if he were a great care to him--"

The old man pulled hard at his pipe. "All that I put together for myself
afterward," said he, "when everything happened that was to happen; he
knew at the time much better than we did how matters stood with Big L,
and what was his brother's character.

"This was, of course, understood among the cadets, and it helped Big L
none the more, for he remained disliked after it as before, yet it made
Little L all the more popular, and he was generally called 'Brother
Love.'

"Now the two lived together in one room, and Little L, as I said, was
very clean and neat; the big one, on the contrary, was very slovenly.
And so Little L fairly made himself servant to his brother, and it
turned out that he even cleaned the brass buttons on his uniform for
him, and just before the ranks formed for roll-call would place himself,
with clothes-brush in hand, in front of his brother, and once more
regularly brush and scrub him--especially on those days when the 'cross
lieutenant' was on duty and received roll-call.

"Well, in the morning the cadets had to go down into the court for
roll-call, and there the officer on duty went up and down between the
lines and inspected their uniforms to see if they were in order.

"And when the 'cross lieutenant' attended to this, then there reigned
the most woful anxiety throughout the company, for he always found
something. He would go behind the cadets and flip at their coats with
his finger to make the dust fly, and if none came, then he would lift
their coat-pockets and snap at them, and so, beat our coats as much as
we would, there was sure to be left some dust lying on them, and as soon
as the 'cross lieutenant' saw it, he would sing out in a voice like that
of an old bleating ram: 'Write him down for Sunday report,' and then
Sunday's day off might go to the devil, and then that got to be a very
serious matter."

The old colonel paused, took a vigorous swallow of wine, and with the
palm of his hand squeezed the beard from his upper lip