But there are two spirits, a brother and sister, who at a moment's notice awake even the most indifferent of men from their dreams by the warm fire-side, and drive them out into the storm and rain, and these are Hate and Love. Hate seizes a man, by the scruff of the neck and throws him out violently, saying: Get out, you blackguard!--Love takes him gently by the hand and leads him to the door, saying: Come with me and I will show you something better than this. But it is six of the one and half-a-dozen of the other, for whichever of these spirits comes to a man he is at once obliged to leave the warm chimney corner whether he will or no.--Alick had to make acquaintance with them both, and by no fault of his own. I do not know whether it is still the case, but it used to be the custom in the Prussian army for the colonel of a regiment to send in regular reports of the conduct of his officers to the war-office at Berlin, and King Frederic William was in the habit of looking over these reports himself just to see how everything was going on in the different companies. Now Alick's good old colonel liked his young lieutenant extremely, and that for many reasons. One of them was this; The colonel had once possessed an estate over at Länneken, near Bütow and Lauenburg, which he had farmed on the most curious and eccentric principles in the world, and now that he had an auditor who was capable of entering into the merits of the case, he launched forth in explanation. The chief peculiarity of his system was that he would allow no manure to be used on his land, because he could not see the use of it; in short he had his own little ways of doing things, and like a stage-coachman who has grown too old to drive, he found intense enjoyment in talking over his experiences. Alick listened attentively and silently, for it would not have done to contradict his commanding officer, and so the old colonel thought him an unusually clever fellow. Alick's name therefore always appeared well in the report, but unfortunately the colonel spelt very badly, and on one occasion he wrote: "Lieutenant von Rambow is a very 'fe-iger' (cowardly) officer," when he meant "fähiger" (smart). The king saw this and wrote on the margin of the report, "I do not require cowards in my army--dismiss him at once." The old colonel was in despair, he must set matters right, but he could see no help for it but to consult his adjutant as to how it should be done. The latter showed him his mistake and then not being able to hold his tongue, told everyone what had happened, and before long poor Alick became the butt of his regiment. The man who laughed loudest, and referred to the matter oftenest, was a pompous fool of "very old family," who had always disapproved of Alick's agricultural talk, not because he found it stupid or mistaken, but because he found fault with everything he did, and now he battered his comrade with his