There was nothing for it but to leave her there and rush off in a _droschke_ to our deserted flat. Hurrying up the stairs two steps at a time and letting myself in with my latch-key I immediately found the Panama on the head of one of the privates in my own battalion, who was lolling in my chair at the breakfast-table I had so lately left being plied with our food by the miserable Clothilde, she sitting on Edelgard’s chair and most shamelessly imitating her mistress’s manner when she is affectionately persuading me to eat a little bit more. The wretched soldier, I presume, was endeavouring to imitate me, for he called her a dear little hare, an endearment I sometimes apply to my wife, on Clothilde’s addressing him as Edelgard sometimes does (or rather did) me in her softer moments as sweet snail. The man’s imitation of me was a very poor affair, but Clothilde hit my wife off astoundingly well, and both creatures were so riotously mirthful that they neither heard nor saw me as I stood struck dumb in the door. The clock on the wall, however, chiming the half-hour recalled me to the necessity for instant action, and rushing forward I snatched the Panama off the amazed man’s head, hurled a furious dismissal at Clothilde, and was out of the house and in the _droschke_ before they could so much as pray for mercy. Immediately on arriving at the station I took Hermann aside and gave him instructions about the removal within an hour of Clothilde, and then, swallowing my agitation with a gulp of the man of the world, I was able to chat courteously and amiably with friends who had collected to see us off, and even to make little jokes as though nothing whatever had happened. Of course directly the last smile had died away at the carriage window and the last handkerchief had been fluttered and the last promise to send many picture postcards had been made, and our friends had become mere black and shapeless masses without bodies, parts or passions on the grey of the receding platform, I recounted the affair to Edelgard, and she was so much upset that she actually wanted to get out at the next station and give up our holiday and go back and look after her house. Strangely enough, what upset her more than the soldier’s being feasted at our expense and more than his wearing my new hat while he feasted, was the fact that I had dismissed Clothilde. “Where and when am I to get another?” was her question, repeated with a plaintiveness that was at length wearisome. “And what will become of all our things now during our absence?” “Would you have had me not dismiss her instantly, then?” I cried at last, goaded by this persistence. “Is every shamelessness to be endured? Why, if the woman were a man and of my own station, honour would demand that I should fight a duel with her.” “But you cannot fight a duel with a cook,” said Edelgard stupidly.