Throughout the batteries this caused a certain sense of nervous insecurity. The captains were instructed to lay stress on all manner of insignificant details, and it was difficult to get on with the regular training. Only such remarkably active and circumspect officers as Wegstetten and Madelung could manage to satisfy both claims upon them: their ordinary military duties, and the merely personal likes and dislikes of the commander of the regiment and the brigadier. Gropphusen let his battery go as it pleased; he was in one of his wild fits. But Träger and Heuschkel quite lost their heads. Was the new commander going to turn the world upside down? And yet they had thought they were fairly good at their work; Falkenhein himself had told them so from time to time. Güntz got sick of the whole affair. Under Mohbrinck's system the battery might cut a very dashing figure before the commander of the brigade at the review, and yet be worth the devil only knew how little in sober reality. Güntz, for his part, would not bother about it; it was his business to train capable soldiers for his king and country, but not for Major Mohbrinck and Major-general Hausperg. Captain Güntz had commanded the battery for a year; his time of probation was over. Already he had brought his plans to such a point that he could lay them in practical shape before the directors of the gun-foundry in the Rhine provinces. After serious counsel with Frau Kläre, he concluded his letter to the manager with the following sentence: "Therefore I beg you, sir, to give my work your most serious consideration. In case you find my plans workable, please remember that I should be very glad personally to superintend the carrying of them out." "Fatty," said Frau Kläre, "that last sentence is shockingly expressed!" Güntz sat before his letter and looked down reflectively at his signature--"Güntz, captain commanding the sixth battery in the 80th Regiment, Eastern Division, Field Artillery." "Do you know, my Kläre," he said, "I don't quite like the look of it myself." The answer to this letter was very long in coming, unreasonably long, Kläre thought. Her husband comforted her: "Do you think people can come to a decision in a week about a matter over which I pondered for many years?" At last came a letter bearing the stamp of the gun-foundry. Güntz was just changing his coat for his smoking-jacket. He skimmed through the document, and read aloud to Kläre the most important phrase: "... plans extremely promising, ... their construction must certainly be undertaken at once." Then followed a most dazzling proposal for Güntz to enter the factory and occupy a leading position there. Compared with the modest pay of a captain, the suggested salary of fifteen thousand marks seemed positively fabulous.