Little by little, however, the wall of separation between them gave way, and their friendship and mutual confidence had become almost ideal, when Güntz was ordered to serve in the Experimental Department of the Artillery in Berlin. This was a distinction; but it meant absence for a year. Reimers had thus found a friend only to lose him again. The exchange of letters between the two was not specially brisk. Things which could be instantly understood in conversation had to be treated in such detail on paper! They would have had to write each other scientific treatises, and for that there was no time; Reimers was too zealous in his garrison duty, and Güntz too much absorbed in the technical problems on which he was engaged. His loneliness only caused Reimers to devote himself with the greater zeal to his profession. Even the irksome duties of the service did not trouble him, and he took special interest in his recruits, superintending, correcting, and instructing them. In times of peace this was, indeed, the greatest and most important work of the young officer, to mould this stubborn human material into soldiers--soldiers who, after the first rough shaping, had to be trained till finally they attained their highest end: fitness for active service. At the same time he had to pursue his own studies in military science. But he would have been ashamed to call that work; he knew no nobler pleasure, and would gladly have sat up the whole night over the plans of the general staff, only refraining so that the next morning might find him fresh with the needful, or, as he smilingly called it, the "regulation" vigour for practical duty. Thus, when Güntz had gone, Reimers was in danger of becoming somewhat shy of his fellow-creatures. He had honestly to put constraint on himself to fulfil the claims of comradeship with a good grace, and more especially his social obligations. He was most at home in outdoor recreations; he played tennis with enthusiasm, and had nothing against excursions on foot or bicycle with a picnic thrown in, or the regimental races, or hunting. These all meant healthy exercise, and afforded a wholesome change from the confined life of the garrison. But winter, with its obligatory dinners and balls, was a torment to him. On one occasion, standing in the doorway of a ballroom, he had closed his ears so as to exclude all sound of the music, and then had seriously doubted the sanity of the men and women he saw madly jumping about. He felt almost ashamed afterwards when he had to ask the no longer youthful Frau Lischke for a dance; but the fat lady hung smiling on his arm, and did not spare him a single round. Reimers thought sadly of his honest friend Güntz, and the rude things he had been wont to say about such follies as these.