"You are right, but I am not speaking about myself, but of things in general. In my regiment it happens we are nearly all the sons of retired officers and I am constantly hearing one or other of them complaining: 'Why on earth didn't my father let me be something else, as he must know I can't possibly manage on the small allowance he gives me?' Why do these old officers always send their sons to a military college in spite of all there is against it? Because it is cheap, and it is so very convenient to get the young rascals educated in that way. Do you suppose that in the future the retired officers would take it quite so much as a matter of course that their sons should go into the army if they had to pay four or five hundred marks a year at college instead of eighty, besides providing them with clothes? They would not think any more about it. But now it's a simple matter: 'Let the boy be educated cheaply, that's the thing, we can attend to other things later on.' Privately they always reckon upon an old uncle or aunt, and when one day they 'strike' or die, then the lieutenant is in a fix and gets into debt, or he is expected to live upon air. People always talk about the foolish lieutenants, but what about the foolish parents who, to save themselves the expense of educating them, let them adopt a profession in which it is impossible to earn any money and the temptation to spend it is tremendous." "Very well delivered," said his father; "but if the officer has no money to get his son properly educated, as was the case with me, what is he to become?" "Fritz ought to have been put into business," declared Hildegarde. "If a man has no means he should choose a career in which he can make money." "In theory that is very beautiful and quite true," answered Fritz; "and if many fathers were as wise as you, my charming sister, it would be better for our officers. These first-class men, as father called them a little while ago, would not run around and beg and borrow and get credit, and try their luck at cards in order to try and keep their heads above water until they find a rich wife or are ruined." The major had listened to his son very attentively, now he said: "I am astonished that you, an officer's son, should talk in this way. Who, according to your theory, should supply the army with officers if not we?"