Though young in the service, he had seen men meant for better things broken as a reed on the wheel of military formalism; he had seen them retiring when but in the prime of life, broken in spirit, unfit for any new career, impaired in health, perfectly useless--victims of the conventional ideas that rule supreme in the army. Others he had seen forced to resign, overloaded with a burden of debt, ruined financially, physically, morally bankrupt,--all due to the tinsel and glitter, to the ceaseless temptations thrown into the path of the German army officer. A young civilian, even when the son of wealthy parents, is not coaxed and wheedled into a network of useless expenditure, as is the youngest army officer, waylaid everywhere by the detestable gang of “army usurers,” who follow him to the bitter end, knowing that to repudiate even the shadiest debt means disgrace and dismissal from the army to every officer, no matter if his follies have been committed at an age when other young boys are still subject to closest supervision. Deep lines had formed on Bleibtreu’s smooth forehead, and he was visibly startled when the cheery, round voice of his squadron commander, Captain König, recalled him to his surroundings. “And that’s what they call pleasure,” said he, sitting down on the sofa beside his young lieutenant, for whom he felt something like paternal affection. “If such entertainments were at least arranged beforehand, with the consent or at the instance of the juniors themselves,--for I will say nothing about us older men,--but no! Frau Stark commands, and the whole regiment, from the colonel down to the youngest cornet, has simply to obey. Disgraceful, I say. Why, we cannot even choose our own tipple on such occasions. The colonel simply orders that a May bowl be composed, and we have to brew it, drink it, and--pay for it. This evening will cost us a pretty penny again. A glass of apollinaris would be far more palatable, and certainly much cheaper and appropriate at this temperature than this confounded sweetish stuff, which gives one a headache fit to split the skull next morning.” “Quite true, Captain,” replied the young man. “This form of quasi-official pressure, even in one’s private expenditures, is one of the worst curses of our profession. It has indirectly caused the ruin of many a promising young officer, I’ve been told.”