"Dear boy," responded Güntz, "why should I not speak freely to you? Do you think it gives me any pleasure that so many of our superiors and comrades do not merit the respect which, as officers, they command? This has nothing to do with their personal character. The only question for me is: are they fit for their profession? If not, they are only a nuisance in it, so far as I can see." "You used to be less severe." "Possibly. But when one has rubbed the sleepiness of habit out of one's eyes one sees more clearly and sharply. Besides, take an example. Stuckhardt will be a major soon. Do you consider him fit to lead a division?" "No, he has already made a terrible mess of his battery. He won't stay on the staff for a year, that's certain." "Why should he be there at all? I tell you he should never even have been made a captain. What about Gropphusen?" "Ah! There you are! He has missed his vocation!" "Why is he still where he is then?" Güntz laughed grimly to himself. "What ought he to have been?" "A painter," answered Reimers. The other made a grimace. "Possibly!----Well, thirdly, what of my revered chief, Captain Mohr? What do you think of him?" "He has already got a knife at his throat. I bet he'll be sent off after the man[oe]uvres." "He goes on drinking just as he has ever since I've known him." Güntz sighed deeply. "And I tell you, Reimers, it's no joke to serve under such a man." Reimers nodded. "I feel with you, old man. And yet half the regiment envies you for being in the fifth battery." "Pooh!" laughed Güntz bitterly, "there you see them. They would all like to idle under a sot. They just want to be where they think they're least looked after. They may do as they choose; but I want to know what I'm here for. If I have a profession I like to live up to it; I consider myself too good to be merely ornamental. I tell you, Reimers," he went on, "I was thoroughly upset when I joined the battery. The way things go on there you would hardly believe. I wondered at first how it could be kept dark. But there's a regular planned-out system of hurrying things into shape somehow for inspection--fixing up a sort of model village. And as for honour! Well, one must admit that they all stand by one another in the most infernal way, from the respected chief of the battery down to the smallest gunner, so that they'll rattle along somehow. There's a show of some sort of discipline; but really and truly it's just an all-round compromise. A man does a couple of days' work, and earns by that the right of idling all the more shamelessly afterwards. And that _I_ should be let in for this sort of thing! Dear boy, you know how few palpable results, naturally, an officer can show in time of peace; but still it's too much that one should do one's duty with no possible chance of any _kudos_. Old man, it's too bad! I can't stand it. I know this, that if it goes on I shall quit the service, dearly as I love it."