The fact was that once a Rapine picture-book, with pictures of the Austrian army, had found its way into the Howdahs, and on that day the brothers had agreed to divide the two highest dignities in the army between themselves, while to him, the younger, the place of a non-commissioned officer was assigned. Since then, indeed, there had been periods when one of them had inclined to the vocation of a trapper, and the other to that of an Indian chief, but Paul’s thoughts clung to those gold-braided uniforms, with which the wooden spears, and the patched rag sandals, which the brothers wore in their games--the latter they called moccasins--could by no means bear comparison; also, why they afterwards wanted to be naturalist and superintendent was incomprehensible to him; the new Rapine pictures always remained the best. At this time the twins began to walk; Katie, the elder one--she was born three-quarters of an hour before her sister--made the beginning, and Greta followed her three days after. That was an important event in Paul’s life. He suddenly found himself in a round of duties from which he could not easily get free. Nobody had ordered him to watch his little sisters’ first steps, but just as it had always been natural to him to clean his boots in the evening, and his brothers’ into the bargain, to fold his little frock in a square, and to put it at the head of his bed, with his stockings across it, never to make a spot on the tablecloth, and to receive the punishment from his father when the self-same accidents happened to his brothers--so it became just as natural that he should henceforth look after his little sisters, and, with premature care, watch over their most rash attempts to stand and walk. He appeared to himself so full of importance in this office that even the longing to go to school became less, and if by a lucky chance he had only been able to whistle, there would have been no wish left him. Ah! to be able to whistle, like Jones, the farm-servant, or like his elder brothers; that was now the goal of all his wishes, the object of incessant practice. But however much he might point his lips, however much he might moisten them to make them flexible, no sound came forth. If he drew in the air, then accidentally he would do it. Once he had even succeeded in producing the first notes of “IST in J.D. im Washer gefallen” (A Jew Tumbled into the Water); but each professional whistler knows that the air must be blown from the mouth, and this was just what he could not learn. Here also the thought comforted him: “When I am big.”