streets of Paris in the early summer of Seventy-one. But it is necessary
that I make a beginning, else I shall never make an ending, as Madame
Hegelmann Wittwe, of the Prinz Karl, says when there are many guests,
and we have to rise after two hours' sleep as if we were still on
campaign. But again I am interrupted and turned aside.

Comes now the young Herr, and he has his supper, for ever since he came
to the Prinz Karl he takes his dinner in the midst of the day as a man
should.

"Ouch," he says, "it makes one too gross to eat in the evening."

So the Herr takes his dinner at midday like a good German; and when
there is supper he will always have old Jacob to tell him tales, in
which he says that there is no beginning, no era, nor Hegira, no Anno
Domini, but only the war of Seventy. But he is a hard-hearted young
Kerl, and will of necessity have his jesting. Only yesterday he said--

"Jacob, Jacob, this duck he must have been in the war of Siebenzig; for,
begomme, he is tough enough. Ah, yes, Jacob, he is certainly a veteran.
I have broken my teeth over his Iron Cross." But if he had been where I
have been, he would know that it is not good jesting about the Iron
Cross.

Last night the young Herr, he did not come home for supper at all. But
instead of him there came an Officier clanging spurs and twisting at
seven hairs upon his upper lip. The bracing-board on his back was tight
as a drum. The corners stretched the cloth of his uniform till they
nearly cut through.