f you, Colonel Burgsdorf. I hope
also to keep my position yet longer, and never to be thrust under the
table by you."

He looked full in the colonel's bloated and wine-flushed face with a cold,
proud glance, and smiled when he saw how Burgsdorf's brow darkened and his
eyes flashed with fierce hatred.

"You will remain standing, Sir Stadtholder, so long as God and the Elector
please," said Burgsdorf slowly. "Many an one falls, and under the table,
too, although he may not be drunk with wine, but with pride and ambition,
avarice and rapacity."

"Enough, Burgsdorf, enough," replied the count haughtily. "I did not
summon you here to hold with you a controversy about words, for well do I
know that you are as mighty in words as in drinking. I have had you
summoned that you might receive your orders, and do and perform whatever
the Stadtholder in the Mark commands and enjoins upon you, in the names of
the Emperor's Majesty and his Electoral Grace. General von Klitzing, I
have nominated you commander in chief of all the fortifications, as you,
Colonels von Kracht, von Rochow, and von Burgsdorf, commandants of Berlin,
Spandow, and Kuestrin. You may perceive from this that a new era has
dawned, and that we have great things to expect from the future. Gentlemen,
the time for waiting and delay is past. The Elector has concluded a treaty
with the Emperor, by which the Emperor declares that the dukedom of
Pomerania is the natural heritage of the Elector of Brandenburg, and
invests him with it. It is true that at present the Swedes occupy
Pomerania, and will not evacuate. But to that very end we must labor, to
force the presumptuous Swedes to do this; and thereto the Elector has
pledged himself to raise an army of five-and-twenty thousand men. To
superintend these levies is the affair of the colonels and staff officers,
therefore also your affair."

"The only question is, where is the money to come from to effect such
levies," said General Klitzing.

"Yes, that is the question," exclaimed the three colonels impatiently.

"And the answer runs: The Emperor's Majesty has assigned money for that
purpose. The Emperor's Majesty has granted the Elector a release from the
payment of two hundred Roman-months which the Elector owed him, and with
these two hundred Roman-months, which amount to three hundred and
sixty-five thousand florins, troops are to be levied. But besides this,
the Emperor expressly adds sixty thousand dollars, to be e