"Gentlemen," he said quietly, "I have a piece of news to communicate to
you, which I fear will incommode you and your men a little, and is not
calculated to heighten the love of the military for their chief. The
Elector commands me, until further notice, to put the troops upon summer
allowance, and the payment now in arrears is regarded as coming under the
same regulation. I beg you will inform your troops of this."

"That is shameful! That is contemptible! That will put the soldiers in a
perfect fury!" screamed the three officers together.

"I do not mean to tell my men!" exclaimed Herr von Rochow--"no, I shall
not tell them, for the fellows would be frantic, and in their desperation
might commit shameful acts!"

"I shall tell my men on the spot!" grumbled Herr von Kracht. "I shall tell
them on purpose to make them desperate, to make them rave! As far as I am
concerned, they are welcome to vent their spleen upon all Berlin, upon the
whole region round about. Let them go around, plundering and laying the
country under contribution; they are justified in doing so, for the
fellows can not subsist in winter on summer allowance, and therefore must
rob and plunder."

"I shall tell my soldiers directly, too," shouted Herr von Goldacker. "Not
but that it will give rise to a pretty tale of murder, a devilish scandal.
There will result a military out-break, and the burghers of Berlin and
Cologne may look to themselves; but the Elector has so willed it--the
Elector excites us as well as our subordinates to open insurrection. Let
him work his will now; it will only convince him that we are not to be
ruled by scraps of paper and decrees scribbled by feather-headed clerks,
and that he is not the irresistible lord, to whose piping we dance. The
little Elector shall be made to know that the Emperor alone is our supreme
officer, to him we have sworn fealty, and to him we cling despite the
Elector and all his deputies. I am going on the spot to give my
commissioner his dismissal--to tell him that I shall not swear, and then
to carry to my soldiers the news of their having been put upon summer
allowance!"

"I will go with you," cried Herr von Kracht. "I will also put my
commissioner out of the door, and convey the glad tidings to the garrison
of Berlin."

"And I," said Herr von Rochow, "will forthwith dispatch a courier to
Spandow, to tell my lieutenant that he must send the commissioner out of
the fort, and tell the garrison that