"Sst! We can do that in our room. It's the custom among the sharpshooters anyway to take in the officers, at least once during their service and secretly carouse in their room all night. We're only recruits, but we'll show them that we're worthy of the carbine." "That would be a great lark! I'll pay for the wine as sure as my name is Ruckstuhl! But we must be sly and crafty as serpents, or we'll do for ourselves." "Don't worry, we're just the boys for this sort of thing. We'll turn in quite quietly and innocently and make no noise." When they reached the barracks their room-mates were all in the canteen drinking a night-cap. Karl confided in a few of them, who passed the tidings on, and so each of them provided himself with a few bottles which, one after the other, they carried out unnoticed and hid under their cots. In their room they quietly went to bed at ten o'clock to wait till the rounds had been made to see if the lights were out. They then all got up again, hung coats over the windows, lighted the lights, brought out the wine and began a regular drinking bout. Ruckstuhl felt as if he were in paradise, for they all drank to him and toasted him as a great man. His ardent desire to be considered somebody in military as well as in civil life without doing anything to deserve it made him stupider than he naturally was. When he and his henchman seemed to have been put completely out of business, various drinking feats were carried out. One of the men, while standing on his head, had to drink a ladle of wine which someone else held to his lips; another, seated in a chair, with a bullet suspended from the ceiling swinging round his head, had to drink three glasses before the bullet touched his head; a third had some other trick to perform, and on all who failed some droll penalty was imposed. All this was done in perfect silence; whoever made a noise also did penance, and they were all in their nightshirts so that, if surprised, they could crawl quickly into bed. Now as the time approached when the officer would make his rounds through the corridors, the two friends were also assigned a drinking-feat. Each was to balance a full glass on the flat of his sword and hold it to the other's mouth and each had to drain the glass so held without spilling a drop. They drew their short-swords with a swagger and crossed the blades with the glasses on them; but they trembled so that both glasses fell off and they did not get a drop. They were, therefore, sentenced to stand guard outside the door, in "undress uniform," for fifteen minutes, and this prank was admiringly said to be the boldest ever carried out in those barracks within the memory of man. Their haversacks and short-swords were hung crosswise over their shirts, they were made to put on their shakoes and blue leggings, but no shoes, and thus, their rifles in their hands, they were led out and posted one on either side of the door. They were scarcely there before the others