“Well, in the morning the cadets had to go down into the court for roll-call, and there the officer on duty went up and down between the lines and inspected their uniforms to see if they were in order. “And when the ‘cross lieutenant’ attended to this, then there reigned the most woful anxiety throughout the company, for he always found something. He would go behind the cadets and flip at their coats with his finger to make the dust fly, and if none came, then he would lift their coat-pockets and snap at them, and so, beat our coats as much as we would, there was sure to be left some dust lying on them, and as soon as the ‘cross lieutenant’ saw it, he would sing out in a voice like that of an old bleating ram: ‘Write him down for Sunday report,’ and then Sunday’s day off might go to the devil, and then that got to be a very serious matter.” The old colonel paused, took a vigorous swallow of wine, and with the palm of his hand squeezed the beard from his upper lip into his mouth and sucked off the wine drops that sparkled on the hair. Recollection of the “cross lieutenant” made him plainly furious. “When one considers what sort of meanness it takes to so deprive a poor little fellow of the Sunday holiday he has been hugging for a whole week, and all for a trifle--bah! it’s downright--whenever I have seen any one annoying my men--in later days that sort of thing didn’t happen in my regiment; they knew this, that I was there and would not tolerate it.--To be rough at times, ay, even to the extreme if necessary, to throw one into the guard-house, that does no harm--: but to nag--for that it takes a mean skunk!” “Very true!” observed the waiter from the back part of the room, and thus made it known that he was following the colonel’s story. The old man calmed himself and went on with his story. “Things went on this way for a year, and then came the time for examinations, always a very special occasion. “The Primaners took their ensign’s examination, and the Selektaners, who, as I have said, Were called ‘Onions,’ the officer’s examination, and as fast as any had passed the examination, they were dismissed from the cadet corps and sent home, and it came about that the second classmen, or Sekundaner, who were to be promoted to first class, still remained Sekundaner for a time. “Well, this state of affairs lasted until the new Sekundaner entered from the preparatory school and the newly dubbed ‘Onions’ returned, and then once more the wheelbarrow trudged along its accustomed way. But in the meantime a kind of disorder prevailed, more especially just after the last of the Primaners had left--they were examined in sections, you know, and then despatched, after which everything went pretty much at sixes and sevens.