military schools?"

"They are, to the best of my knowledge, instituted for rearing
defenders for one's country, and not with a view to the subjugation of
another's."

"My poor Fritz," said Mrs. Becker laughing, "I hope when you conquer
half the world, you will find an occupation for your mother more in
consonance with your dignity than mending your stockings."

"Then, again," continued Wolston, "war cannot be waged by a single
individual."

"There must be an enemy somewhere," suggested Willis.

"The difficulty does not, however, lie there," observed Jack; "for, if
we have no enemies, it is easy enough to make them."

"There must, at all events, be armies, magazines, and a treasury--or
eggs, as the great commander in question hinted."

"True," replied Fritz; "but there is the same difficulty as regards
all professions; there can be no barristers without briefs, no
physicians without patients."

"You will admit, however, that clients and patients are not so rare as
hundreds of thousands of armed men and millions of money."

"Brother," said Jack, "your cavalry are routed and your infantry
outflanked."

"If you are determined to be a conqueror, let it be by the pen rather
than by the sword--or, what do you say to oratory? It is not easier,
perhaps, but, at all events, eloquence is not denied to ordinary
mortals. You will not then, to be sure, rank with the Hannibals, the
Tamerlanes, or the Caesars; but you may attain a place with
Demosthenes, who was more dreaded by Philip of Macedon than an army of
soldiers."

"Or Cicero," remarked Becker, "who preserved his country from the
rapacity of Cataline."

"Or Peter the Hermit," remarked Frank, "who by his eloquence roused
Europe against the Saracens."

"Or Bossuet," added Wolston, "and then you may venture to assert in
the face of kings that _God alone is Great_, should they, like Louis
XIV., assume the sun as an emblem, and adopt such a silly scroll as
'_Nec pluribus impar_.'"

"Bossuet, Peter the Hermit, Cicero, and Demosthenes, are not so bad,
after all, as a last resource," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "and I would
recommend you to enrol yourself in that list of conquerors, Master
Fritz."

"The more especially," observed Jack, "as you have no impediment in
your voice, and would not have to undergo a course of pebbles like
Demosthenes."

"So far as that goes, Jack," replied Fritz, "you would possess a like
advantage for the profession as myself; but I will tak