rau Leimann's departure, went shrieking and
thundering out of the little station, he felt that he was being
carried on to a brighter future. That was enough for him.

When he and Frau Leimann met, late the same evening, in the
dining-room of an elegant hotel, all their life seemed to lie before
them draped in rosy hue, and no shadows of coming evils troubled them.
After they had ladled their soup in comfort, and with the appearance
of a fine game pie, for which this hotel is famous among _gourmets_,
the ex-officer motioned to the black-frocked waiter with the
immaculate shirt front, and said, curtly:

"A bottle of Mumm, _sec!_"

Thus these two celebrated the event of their flight.

CHAPTER VIII

CHANGES IN THE GARRISON

The flight of First Lieutenant Borgert could not long remain a secret.

When he did not return at the expiration of his short leave, and a
telegraphic query brought the answer from his father that he had not
seen him, the assumption began to take shape that he had tried to
escape the consequences of his misdoings by deserting.

It is true that no one aside from Leimann had known precisely his bad
financial status. But when the Jewish dealer came to claim the
furniture sold him, and at the same time the bailiff arrived with the
intention of seizing the very same objects on the strength of a new
process of attachment begun in court, the catastrophe could no longer
be hidden from the world. Everybody then began to see, detail after
detail, the whole system of fraud erected by Borgert, with the passive
connivance of his friend Leimann.

The court ordered that the entire property of the deserter be placed
in legal custody. A term was fixed when the horde of creditors whom he
had so shamefully deceived were to be adjudged _pro-rata_ shares of
the whole. Advertisements were inserted in the papers, calling upon
all those having claims against the estate of the defaulter to come
forward. Hundreds of bills came by mail from all the cities and towns,
and even from the villages surrounding the little garrison, and the
amounts in their totality figured up to a considerable sum.

Borgert's father, too,--a worthy old gentleman, broken-hearted at the
downfall of his only son,--had to appear in court and depose as to his
son's past and present misdoings, as far as he was aware of them. Even
that portion of the estate which, according to the father's
intentions, was to fall to his son's share at his fa