A determined soldier whose business it is to hold his life cheap and to adventure it easily, is but a stupid creature. Out of a thousand fellows you could hardly have found one that would have gone as a guest to an unknown place with one that had even now tried to murder him. On the way I asked him which army he was of. So he said, he served no prince but was his own master, and asked of what party I was. I answered I had served the Duke of Weimar but had now my discharge, and was minded to betake myself home. Then he asked my name, and when I said "Simplicius" he turned him round (for I made him walk before me because I trusted him not) and looked me straight in the face. "Is not thy name also Simplicissimus?" quoth he. "Yea," says I, "he is a rogue that denies his own name: and who art thou?" "Why, brother," he answered, "I am Oliver, whom thou wilt surely remember before Magdeburg." With that he cast away his gun and fell on his knees to beg for my pardon that he had meant to do me an ill turn, saying he could well conceive he could have no better friend in the world than he would find in me, since according to old Herzbruder's prophecy I was so bravely to avenge his death. And I for my part did wonder at so strange a meeting, but he said, "This is nothing new: mountain and valley can never meet, but what is truly strange is this, that I from a secretary have become a footpad and thou from a fool a brave soldier. Be ye sure, brother, that if there were ten thousand like us, we could relieve Breisach to-morrow and in the end make ourselves masters of the whole world."