in the fifth infantry regiment, and soon astonished
all by his intelligence and rapid progress. One misfortune befel him
here also; he received a gypsy for his bedfellow. This gypsy had
a peculiar aversion to soap and water. Aloys was ordered by the
drill-sergeant to take him to the pump every morning and wash him
thoroughly. This was sport at first; but it soon became very irksome:
he would rather have washed the tails of six oxen than the face of the
one gypsy.

Another member of the company was a broken-down painter. He scented the
spending-money with which Aloys' mother had fitted him out, and soon
undertook to paint him in full uniform, with musket and side-arms, and
with the flag behind him. This made up the whole resemblance: the face
was a face, and nothing more. Under it stood, however, in fine Roman
characters, "Aloys Schorer, Soldier in the Fifth Regiment of Infantry."

Aloys had the picture framed under glass and sent it to his mother. In
the accompanying letter he wrote,--

"DEAR MOTHER:--Please hang up the picture in the front room, and let
Mary Ann see it: hang it over the table, but not too near the dovecote;
and, if Mary Ann would like to have the picture, make her a present of
it. And my comrade who painted it says you ought to send me a little
lump of butter and a few yards of hemp-linen for my corporal's wife: we
always call her Corporolla. My comrade also teaches me to dance; and
to-morrow I am going to dance at Haeslach. You needn't pout, Mary Ann:
I am only going to try. And I want Mary Ann to write to me. Has Jacob
all his oxen yet? and hasn't the roan cow calved by this time?
Soldiering isn't much of a business, after all: you get catawampously
tired, and there's no work done when it's over."

The butter came, and was more effective this time: the gypsy was
saddled upon somebody else. With the butter came a letter written by
the schoolmaster, in which he said,--

"Our Matthew has sent fifty florins from America. He also writes that
if you had not turned soldier you might have come to him and he would
make you a present of thirty acres of land. Keep yourself straight, and
let nobody lead you astray; for man is easily tempted. Mary Ann seems
to be out of sorts with you,--I don't know why: when she saw your
picture she said it didn't look like you at all."

Aloys smiled when he read this, and said to himself, "All right. I am
very different from what I was: didn't I say it, Mary Ann,--eh?"