morning, Herr Captain! I must beg you to excuse me if I
interfere with your liberty for a moment, but a very pressing matter
induces me to ask of you a great favor."

"You astonish me. What is the matter? Is it anything of importance?"
retorted the captain.

"This afternoon the colonel will doubtless mention the unpaid Casino
bills, and it would be extremely painful to me, especially in the
presence of the junior officers, to have my name spoken of in that
connection."

"My dear fellow," said Captain Koenig, "you'll have to go elsewhere
for the money. It was difficult enough for me to raise that hundred
for you a week ago."

"And if I repeat my request, nevertheless, Captain, it is because I
find myself in a horribly embarrassing situation. For if I don't
succeed in procuring four hundred marks till this evening, I shall
have to face the most annoying, possibly disastrous consequences."

"All very well, but I simply haven't the money," said the captain,
shrugging his shoulders.

For a moment or two there was silence, and each avoided looking at the
other. Then Borgert murmured, hesitatingly:

"May I make a proposition, Herr Captain?"

"Well?"

"But I must ask you not to misunderstand me. Would it not be possible
to borrow so small a sum from the funds of the squadron, since it
would be only a question of a few days?"

Captain Koenig looked startled.

"But, my dear fellow, how can you suggest such a thing to me! You
can't expect me to touch the treasury."

"I do not think it would matter the least bit, since the Herr Captain
alone is responsible for that fund, and since this would practically
mean nothing but the transferring of four hundred marks from the
public fund in your own keeping to private funds of your own, to be
made good by you, without anybody being the wiser within a week or
so."

"No, no, that would never do," again said the other.

"But, Captain, you cannot leave me in the lurch. It would simply place
me in a beastly predicament," wailed Borgert, glancing appealingly at
his brother officer.

Koenig began to think, twirling his moustache. On the whole, he
reflected, it might be a wise thing to place under an obligation this
man with the dangerously bitter tongue. Borgert's influence on the
younger officers was not to be underestimated, he knew, and a refusal
would turn him into an enemy. The money itself he had, locked up in a
drawer of his desk at home; but if he made Borgert believe