John Kurt was tall, thin, bony, and as supple as a willow. He wore beard and moustache, but they did not grow well. The hair was ragged, and there were patches where none grew. This gave his face a look of being torn in two. When his wild eyes flashed out he was actually ugly. But his brow was clear, with the fair skin which was hereditary in his family; and sometimes, when he was at his best, a gleam would pass over it which quite redeemed his plainness. His feelings were extremely strong, and he could make others feel with him. The finest thing in the world for a grown man, he considered, was without doubt to be a soldier and officer. He thundered out his assurances to the whole world, that no one could be a man who had not gone through his drill. "Drill and discipline," he would exclaim, using by preference the commonest expressions, for book language was not strong enough; "drill and discipline. That was women-folks' greatest loss that they never had discipline or tact in their commonplace lives--the swine!" The whole country ought to be arranged as one vast "Drill-hall." There would be no more cranky bodies then: "No, there would be--devil take me--order and sense; the whole _Storting_--devil plague them--ought to go to the parade ground and be drilled." Till that day came there would be ne'er a bit of sense in the whole crew. "The king--devil stare at me--ought to be drilled, if not the whole place would be like a pigstye, where the strongest snout shoves t'other one's out of the trough. Some one must stand over them with a whip." How then can one possibly paint the astonishment of his comrades, his friends, and, above all, of his father, when one fine day it was announced that First Lieutenant John Kurt had applied for a discharge, which had been granted him. He came storming home again, and whenever he was asked why he had left, he replied that the whole military system was--"devil pickle him--the most miserable buffoonery. No honourable man ought to lend himself to it. The officers were nothing but dressed-up, well-trained monkeys, who trained strong lusty lads to be monkeys as well. The generals were big monkeys with feathers in their caps, and the king was the chief monkey of all." What was he going to do? "Why, dig the ground like his father. The earth--that was the only solid thing there was in creation, and so it was the only thing worth a rush, or that produced anything worth having. To get out of it all that tasted best, and smelt best, that was--may the devil quarter him--the finest thing an independent lad could turn his hand to." He dressed himself in the most slovenly way, and worked among the other labourers for his living.