e wall
were cased in heavy gilt or oak frames, so unskilfully placed as to
conceal in spots the very wall itself. Above the scarlet plush sofa
hung a reproduction of Lenbach's "Prince Bismarck," and to right and
left of it abominable oil chromos representing horses. Against the
opposite wall stood a piano in stained oak, showing glittering
silver-plated candelabra. Neither Roth himself nor his worthy better
half, formerly saleswoman in a shop, possessed the slightest knowledge
of the art of manipulating such an instrument. But there was a story
connected with this showy piece of furniture--a story that even now,
years after the events themselves occurred, brought tears of rage to
the eyes of the "Vice." To the young corporal of his own squadron who
on Sunday afternoons strummed on the piano, he used to say in pathetic
accents, that those "one year's volunteers"[9] had treated him most
outrageously; and from his own point of view he was probably right.

[8] A vice-sergeant-major in the German cavalry receives in
legitimate pay and emoluments and rations, if married, about
one dollar per day. But it is notorious that peculations,
hush money, and bribes from privates often swell his income
to ten times that amount.--TR.

[9] "One year's volunteers" are those young soldiers in the
German army who, by reason of superior education and because
they pay for their own uniforms and accoutrements, serve but
one year in the active army. They belong, of course, mostly
to the well-to-do classes, and generally are promoted to the
rank of officers in the reserves.--TR.

During the first year of their married life the "Frau
Vice-Sergeant-Major," full of a sense of her new dignity, had
painfully felt the lack of an "upright" or, better still, a "grand,"
inasmuch as she regarded such an instrument as an irrefutable evidence
of belonging to the higher walks of life. She asserted, besides, that
in her girlhood she had received instruction on the piano,--an
assertion which nobody was able to dispute because that period lay
about a generation back. She admitted that she had forgotten whatever
of piano playing she might ever have known; but she felt quite sure
that a piano in her parlor would restore the lost nimbus, and
then--perhaps the most potent reason of all--the wife of her husband's
"colleague" in the second squadron owned a piano, and had taken great
care to let her know the fact soon af