Well, in any case he had done right not to break away suddenly from the time of probation on which he himself had determined; for it was certainly strange how a calm, stead-fast man, such as he believed himself to be, could be so swayed backwards and forwards in opposite directions in such a short time. During the night he had been firmly resolved to retire; a few hours later this step seemed an impossibility to him. Was there really so little, then, in his imagined calmness and steadfastness? But he was glad that the time of probation, though not shortened, would, on the other hand, not have to be extended. He would command the battery for a year; by then he must have made his decision. And for to-day he was determined to put no check on his joy and good humour. Frau Kläre wondered at her husband, who would not leave her a moment in peace with his teasing and nonsense, and even waked the baby up from a sound sleep. And Güntz stood beaming before the mother and child, laughing heartily at the angry howl set up by his little son, and lighted his cigar with a spill until the whole piece of paper was reduced to a cinder. He had made that spill out of the farewell note he had placed under the fungus-like letterweight. CHAPTER X "Morning red, morning red, Light me to my dying bed!" (_Hauff._) Room IX. was still to remain "aristocratic"--as Weise satirically remarked--even after Baron Walther von Frielinghausen had moved over to the non-commissioned officers' quarters. A few days before the regiment left for the man[oe]uvres, Count Egon Plettau arrived and took possession of Frielinghausen's locker. All kinds of wild reports had been circulating in the battery about Plettau. Judging from these he appeared to be a perfect terror. A lieutenant who had had his ears boxed, and a sergeant who had been flung against a wall, played the chief part in these reports. But, as a matter of fact, of the whole battery only Heppner and the senior non-commissioned officers knew the mad count personally, and during the five years' detention in a fortress that Plettau had had to undergo, two sets of recruits had already come and gone without having made his acquaintance. The inmates of Room IX. expected to see a pale man, bent and bowed with long imprisonment; but the new comrade bore a tolerably healthy appearance, and had a good-tempered, friendly face. The count was handled very tenderly by the non-commissioned officers. They had received an intimation that as far as their duty permitted they were to do all they could to enable this child of misfortune at last to complete his military service.