He found everything as he had left it when he reached the barracks, but _he_ himself was changed, at least he told himself so every day; but if his brother officers had been asked their opinion on the subject, they would have said that they saw no difference in him, which was quite natural, as the only change in him was that he made plenty of good resolutions, but never put them in practice. He was determined to be economical; he was determined to follow his father's advice, and read the agricultural books he had sent him, as much of them, at least, as he could; he was determined .... he was determined .... Oh, what did he not determine to do?--His economy began early in the morning with his coffee; for a whole long week he drank it without sugar, for, said he, "Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves;" after coffee he smoked a cigar, for which he now paid at the rate of two pounds seventeen a thousand, instead of three pounds; he scolded his servant for giving him butter at breakfast; he ordered his groom to give his horses half feeds of corn instead of whole feeds as before, because, he said, oats were so dear. Of all his new regulations this was the only one that lasted--probably because he and his horses did not dine together--the rest came to an end after a week's trial. And why? Because, he said, he could not carry out his plan in everything, and to be of use it must be done thoroughly. It was not much better with his studies. He knew the first three pages of each of the books on farming almost by heart, he had read them so often. He always began at the very beginning again when he took them up, for if he did not, he lost the sense of what he was reading. To make up for this conscientiousness on his part, he sometimes amused himself by picking out the most interesting bits of the books, and when he had gone through them all in this way, reading a page about horses here, and another there, he threw them aside, and said that he knew all about it now, and indeed understood the whole affair better than the authors themselves. Ah, well--what good did all that reading do him? He knew nothing of agriculture practically, and a farmer must be _practical_, theory is worse than useless to him. He made the acquaintance of a Mr. von so and so whose estate lay near the town in which his regiment was quartered; like Mr. von so and so he asked the bailiff what they were doing to-day whenever he rode to the farm, and then he went home again understanding as much about the real state of matters as Mr. von so and so himself, for he knew as well as his friend that manure had been carted in Seelsdorf on the 15th of June, and that the young horse at Basedow was descended from Gray Momus; or else he went out to shoot over the barley-stubble with Mr. von so and so, and as they walked, found on enquiry that the last load of barley had been led in on the 27th of August; then he shot a few partridges, and when he came home at