around this circle of bare flesh.

The Commander shook hands, and gulped down his cup of coffee (the
sixth since that morning), while listening to the report of his
subordinate about the incidents and happening in the service. Then
both came back near the window and declared that theirs was not a
cheerful lot. The Major, a quiet man, married and having left his
wife home, would adapt himself to anything; but the Baron Captain,
accustomed to leading a fast life, a patron of low resorts, a wild
chaser of disreputable women, was furious at having been confined
for the last three months to the obligatory chasteness of this out
of the way Post.

Presently they heard a scratching on the door; the Commander said:
"Come in," and a man, one of their automaton soldiers, appeared
in the aperture, announcing by his mere presence that luncheon was
served.

In the dining-room they found three officers of lower rank; one
lieutenant, Otto von Grossling, and two second-lieutenants, Fritz
Scheuneberg and Markgraf Wilhelm von Eyrik, a tiny blond man,
haughty and brutal with his men, harsh toward the vanquished foe,
and violent like a fire-arm.

Since his arrival in France his comrade called him only Mademoiselle
Fifi. This nickname was bestowed upon him on account of his
coquettish style of dressing and manners, his slender waist, which
looked as if it were laced in a corset, his pale face on which a
nascent mustache could hardly be seen, and also on account of the
habit he had acquired, in order to express his supreme contempt