its). There
was also a solid oak writing-table, on one corner of which Frau Roth
had stood the cages for her canary birds, just then in the interesting
stage of breeding, and therefore voiceless. A huge portrait of the
Kaiser, with two crossed sabres and a pair of pistols under it, and a
cuckoo clock were exhibited on the wall close by. There was also a big
flower table, but on near view it was seen that its fine roses and
tulips had not originated in a hothouse, but under the scissors of an
artist in tissue paper.

On the floor were to be seen two white goat-skins and three small mats
of domestic make, as well as a genuine Kelim (gift from "one year's
men"), and a thick plush table-cover, as well as plush draperies,
helped to make an impression which, combined as it was of so many
ill-fitting details, was far from the one intended.

Glancing at the lowering sky through the east windows of this room,
big, shapeless clouds of gray could be observed slowly driving along;
it looked, in fact, like a cheerless and stormy ocean, monotonous in
its uniform tint. Now and then showers of cold hail or rain tore away
from this chaos, and, pitched hither and thither by howling winds,
swept across the town or over the desolate fields.

When the rain thus whipped the window-panes and the boisterous west
wind whistled and roared in the stove-pipe, it was, by very contrast,
all the more comfortable in this warm, cosy room, where one felt like
humanely pitying the poor comrades, now far out on the parade field,
drilling for dear life in the open.

This was the time of year when the regiment ordered into a shorter or
longer term of renewed active service its reserve men, who were then
temporarily quartered in the sheds and loosely constructed pavilions
erected behind the barracks proper. At such a time and in such weather
it was by no means pleasant to be out on the drill grounds for the
space of a whole afternoon, and then, returning, to find one's
quarters cold, dripping with rain; and to stand shivering in clothes
and boots thoroughly soaked. Those corporals and sergeants detailed
for the instruction of recruits under the roof of the big barracks
hall, and those told off for stable or other indoor service, were well
off in comparison.

For the non-commissioned officers generally, however, and especially
for Roth, there was profit connected with the annual recall of the
reserves; for it meant increased pay, and it meant a great in