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Only Vogt and Klitzing looked at him with compassion; who could tell what trouble this Frielinghausen was suffering from? Weise became only the more gay. He took on himself to enliven the feast with jokes and drollery, and they all listened willingly; it kept off dulness, and the disagreeable thoughts that assailed them. The corporal, too, listened awhile, well pleased.
Baron Walter von Frielinghausen was a second-year student, expelled from the gymnasium for repeated misdemeanours. His mother, a very poor widow, had not the means to continue his education, neither was the family ready to do so.
Who knows what impertinence the fellow may not have scrawled?" Corporal von Frielinghausen was charged with the mission, and ascended the hillside. The exercises were begun meanwhile. Frielinghausen found the piece of cardboard neatly placed against a bank beside the last traces of Count Egon Plettau.
His little swimming eyes seemed to hypnotise the dealer when they were playing cards, and his big fat hands had nothing to do but to rake in the winnings. He had not the least scruple in taking money from the sergeant-major and Trumpeter-sergeant Henke, who were usually his adversaries why else did the fellows play with him? but he did not like winning from Frielinghausen.
The request did seem a little unusual and unmilitary; but he consented, and wrote to "The high and well-born Baroness von Frielinghausen" a letter over which a mother might well rejoice. It seemed the more terrible for Frielinghausen when in February, after the examination of the recruits, he received a telegram briefly announcing his mother's death.
"Why not?" asked Vogt. "I don't wish to," replied the clerk; and as Vogt insisted, he said, "Well, Vogt, I'll tell you: I should never come out again; I should die there." And with a strained smile he added: "It doesn't matter where I die; but I shouldn't like it to be in hospital." Frielinghausen, though an active and agile young fellow, seemed to be constitutionally flighty and superficial.
In August Corporal von Frielinghausen was ordered to the Fire-workers' College in Berlin. The young fellow made a good appearance in his neat uniform; his figure had filled out and become more manly, and on his upper lip a slight moustache had begun to show.
Among the worst were Truchsess the fat brewer, the clerk Klitzing, and Frielinghausen. The brewer, it is true, was a strong, powerful man, but far too slow in his movements. Klitzing, on the other hand, was too weak for the demands of the drill.
He was startled by a hand on his shoulder and a voice saying: "Just let me pass, my son." Frielinghausen stood aside at the bidding of an officer who, in full-dress helmet, with aigrette, epaulettes, bandolier, and scarf, strode into the orderly-room. He thought sadly how he had himself as a youngster dreamt of being an officer, until his mother had talked him over to the safer career of letters.
That alone should be sufficient inducement to make you try to get on." Frielinghausen stood breathless for a moment after he had closed the door of the orderly-room. His heart was full of gratitude for the warm, humane words, which, after all the dry exhortations and admonitions, put new life into his heart.
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