er something on that. But, I ask your pardon, I won't
talk any more--what were you going to say, comrade?"

"I think we ought not to train him for any special calling; Roland must
be a cultivated, wise, and good man, whatever his profession may prove
to be--"

"Just so, just so--excellently said--that's right--the fellow has given
me much anxiety! How foolish people are, to hanker after millions. When
they get them, all they can do is to eat their fill and sleep eight
hours, that's all any one can do. The chief point is--" here the Major
lowered his voice, and raised his hand--"the chief point is, he must
return to nature; that is all the world needs--to return to nature."

Eric luckily abstained from asking the Major what he precisely meant by
this mysterious proposition, for the Major would, unfortunately, not
have been able to tell him; but he was fond of the phrase, and always
used it, leaving every one to find out the meaning for himself.

"To return to nature, everything is included in that," he repeated.

After a while he began:--

"Yes, what was I going to ask?--Tell me, did not you have a great deal
to bear as a soldier, because you were a commoner and not a noble?"

Eric answered in the negative, and the Major stammered out,--

"Indeed, indeed--you--a liberally educated man, felt less of it. I
asked for my discharge. I'll tell you about it sometime."

Eric mentioned that he had been at the priest's, and the Major said,--

"He is an excellent man, but I call for no aid of the ecclesiastics.
You know I am a Freemason."

Eric assented, and the Major continued: "Whatever is good in me has its
home in that; we will talk farther of it--I will be your god-father.
Ah, how glad Herr Weidmann will be to know you."

And again, at the mention of Weidmann's name, it seemed as if a
beautiful view of the highest mountains of the landscape was brought
before the mind. The Major resumed:--

"But now as to the ecclesiastics. Look"--he drew his chair a little
nearer--"look at my drum, it's all there in that--look you, I was a
drummer--yes, smile away, if you like--look you, everybody says such a
drum makes nothing but racket, and I tell them there's music in
it, as beautiful as--I won't disparage any one--as beautiful as any
other--look you, then, I say,--mark my words--then I say, 'I will not
quarrel with you if you hear nothing but noise, but don't quarrel with
me, if I hear something else.' Look you, I have thou