And yet the remedy would be such a simple one," remarked the captain.
"If H. M. would simply issue a decree to the effect that no debts of
army officers up to captain's rank shall be recoverable in court, that
would be the end of army usury, and with it would be removed the worst
cancer of which the whole army suffers. Once the certainty that
ultimately they are sure of their money would be gone, these leeches
would no longer trouble the gay and shiftless young officer whom they
now pursue with the persistence of bloodhounds. But what is the use of
saying this? H. M. himself is not without blame in these things. As
long as his personal example all tells the other way, how can we
expect the army to become prudent and economical?"

"However, Captain, that is not the sole trouble. I think as long as we
as a class--or caste--are taught that we are something better than
the civilian population, so long as we are guided by another code of
ethics, erecting an insurmountable barrier around us, there can be no
real reform. Such prejudices, or rather such systematic teaching, must
inevitably lead to sharp separation between the professional soldier
class and the rest of the people. Good heavens, this is the twentieth
century, and no longer the middle ages, we're living in. Caste and
exclusive privileges must go, else--"

"Sh! Sh! Lower your voice, my dear boy--the colonel is looking our
way, and over there stands Mueller, the adjutant, always ready for
tale-bearing. Let us get up and take a stroll in the moonlight, or,
better still, let us go home."

The lieutenant accompanied his superior officer as far as the door of
his dwelling, and on the way spoke in tones of real concern of the
fact that the cleavage between the private soldier and his superiors
was so great.

"After all," he remarked, "many of these poor devils are every bit as
well educated as we,--some of them even better,--and as long as this
is supposed to be a 'nation in arms,' and not, as in the eighteenth
century, an army of mercenaries, no such strict difference, socially,
ought to be made. Do you know, I often think the Socialists are not so
wrong in some things they urge."

"For goodness' sake, my dear Lieutenant, don't let any such remarks
escape you anywhere else," said Captain Koenig, in a scared voice. But
they had reached the captain's door, and so they shook hands and
parted.

Bleibtreu lived at the other end of the straggling little town. In
walki