neral very simple, according to our ideas.
Their Casino is their meeting place in the evening, like an officers'
club. Some of them are tremendously hard workers, most ambitious, and
showing real interest in their men. F---- used to teach his more
illiterate ones to read and write, and many were the stories he told of
the thick-headed Bavarian peasants. The difference in these men, when we
saw them arriving in the fall, as rookies, and after a year's training,
was absolutely amazing; slumped shoulders had straightened, lower jaws
had decided to connect with upper ones, and eyes focused intelligently.
Each officer has his _Bursch_ or private servant, who usually chooses to
be one. These are treated as friends by their masters, if the latter
happen to be non-Prussian in character. I said once to F----, "Is Karl
your servant?" "No, he is _mein Freund_" he said.

An officer in Diedenhofen where we occasionally sang while I was with
the Metz opera, used to send me gorgeous flowers. He had a way of
sitting near the stage and applauding by flapping his handkerchief
against the palm of his white kid glove, which so enraged me that I
never acknowledged the flowers. One night, an ugly old contralto took my
part, as I was laid up, and that was the night the officer had selected
to present me with a huge basket of white azaleas and blue satin ribbon.
The old dame rewarded the house in general with a false-teeth smile on
receiving them over the footlights, which must have discouraged my
admirer as the flowers stopped abruptly.

We quite often saw young officers very drunk on the streets in Metz, at
about five in the afternoon. Asking F---- about this, we were told that
it was only the young ones, if we would notice, and that they were
obliged to empty their glasses, when toasted by superior officers at
regimental dinners. If these gentlemen caught their eyes, as they raised
their glasses, many times during the two o'clock dinner, the silly young
fellows' heads naturally grew befuddled, but it was not etiquette to
refuse to empty their glass. This custom was very hard on a _Faehnrich_
or Ensign, and was later done away with.

The smartest officers had English dogcarts, and were certainly most
dashing. Many clever ones in the cavalry made money out of horses,
buying and selling them amongst themselves. In Darmstadt they introduced
the English hunt, and wore the pink. We used to go up to Frankfort for
the "gentlemen races," and often