He was right, I thought. I felt that my father had given me up too soon, that he might have allowed me one chance more, and that, as it was, he had forfeited the right to threaten me in addition with the retribution of heaven. And yet it pained me, when an hour or so later Herr von Zehren, who had used up all his wads, took my father's letter from his pocket, and tearing it up, rammed it down both barrels of his gun, with the jesting phrase that necessity knows no law. I could not help feeling as if some misfortune would happen. But the gun did not burst, the birds dropped, and nothing remained of the letter but a smouldering scrap which fell in some dry stubble, and upon which Herr von Zehren set his foot as he thrust the birds into his game-bag. If I had any doubt left whether I was right in setting myself upon my own feet, as I phrased it, a letter which I received from Arthur was only too well adapted to confirm me in my notions of my finally-won liberty. "A lucky dog you always were," he wrote. "You run away from school, and they let you go, as if it was a matter of course; while me they catch as if I were a runaway slave, cram me in the dungeon for three days, every hour cast up to me my disgraceful conduct, and in every way make my life a perfect misery to me. Even my father carries on as if I was guilty of heaven knows what; only mamma is sensible, and says I mustn't take it too much to heart, and that papa will have to come round, or the professor will not let me go into the upper class, and there will be more botherations. It is really a shame that I, just because my uncle, the commerzienrath, wills it so, must go through the final examination, while Albert von Zitzewitz, no older than I, is at the cadets' school, and has a pair of colors already. What has my uncle to do with me, anyhow? Papa says that he will not be able to support me during my lieutenancy without the help he expects from my uncle; and that is likely too, for things get tighter with us every day, and papa went quite wild yesterday when he had to pay sixteen _thalers_ for a glove-bill of mine. If mamma did not help me now and then, I don't know what I should do; but she has nothing, and said to me only yesterday that she did not know what would happen at New Year, when all the bills came in.