who, severely admonished for his recklessness, the next time added to his challenge the precaution, “Unless you instantly say ‘Fatherland’ I’ll fire!” Yet his perfect good humor and childlike curiosity were unmistakable throughout, and incited his comrades and his superiors to show him everything in the hope of getting some characteristic comment from him.  Everything and everybody were open to Karl and his good-humored simplicity.

That evening, as the general accompanied the consul down to the gateway and the waiting carriage, a figure in uniform ran spontaneously before them and shouted “Heraus!” to the sentries.  But the general promptly checked “the turning out” of the guard with a paternal shake of his finger to the over-zealous soldier, in whom the consul recognized Karl.  “He is my Bursche now,” said the general explanatorily.  “My wife has taken a fancy to him.  Ach! he is very popular with these women.”  The consul was still more surprised.  The Frau Generalin Adlerkreutz he knew to be a pronounced Englishwoman,—­carrying out her English ways, proprieties, and prejudices in the very heart of Schlachtstadt, uncompromisingly, without fear and without reproach.  That she should follow a merely foreign society craze, or alter her English household so as to admit the impossible Karl, struck him oddly.

A month or two elapsed without further news of Karl, when one afternoon he suddenly turned up at the consulate.  He had again sought the consular quiet to write a few letters home; he had no chance in the confinement of the barracks.

“But by this time you must be in the family of a field-marshal, at least,” suggested the consul pleasantly.

“Not to-day, but next week,” said Karl, with sublime simplicity; “Then I am going to serve with the governor commandant of Rheinfestung.”

The consul smiled, motioned him to a seat at a table in the outer office, and left him undisturbed to his correspondence.

Returning later, he found Karl, his letters finished, gazing with childish curiosity and admiration at some thick official envelopes, bearing the stamp of the consulate, which were lying on the table.  He was evidently struck with the contrast between them and the thin, flimsy affairs he was holding in his hand.  He appeared still more impressed when the consul told him what they were.

“Are you writing to your friends?” continued the consul, touched by his simplicity.

“Ach ja!” said Karl eagerly.

“Would you like to put your letter in one of these envelopes?” continued the official.

The beaming face and eyes of Karl were a sufficient answer.  After all, it was a small favor granted to this odd waif, who seemed to still cling to the consular protection.  He handed him the envelope and left him addressing it in boyish pride.