His mother, a worthy, hard-working and uneducated woman, was not a little perplexed at the constantly recurring hieroglyphic, but she was far too infatuated with her darling to think anything that he did ridiculous. While he was thus displaying his splendours to the open-mouthed brothers and sisters, his father came in. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "It is impossible to go on studying without money," was the prompt reply. "Come to my study." The doting mother foresaw a scene. She hung on her husband's arm and stroked it coaxingly; but he shook her off with a rough exclamation. A few minutes later two resounding boxes on the ear were heard coming from the study, and the outraged remonstrance of a virtuous youth. "Father, I am a corps-student!" Almost at the same moment he flew back into the family sitting-room and declared that he must go away again instantly. He had no home now, and his mother must pack his things. The packing was quickly accomplished; but when evening came, Kurt Brenckenberg had not gone. The next morning, too, he appeared at the breakfast table. He did not vouchsafe his father a glance, and once more announced his determination to leave by the first train, as he had no home. So it went on for several days, and his father, who might be repenting his violence, let him alone. When a week had passed, he caught his son by the button-hole, and said-- "As you intend to go away to-morrow we will have a farewell drink together to-day. Put on your cap and come along." Kurt acquiesced, and two hours after midnight he played the part of the good Samaritan by bringing home his father, whose drunken state, within a circuit of six miles, no creature would have taken pity on. He made up a bed for him on the sofa, so that his spouse should not be disturbed in her slumbers. After this no more was said about his going away. The relations between father and son became day by day more intimate. Since his own offspring had beaten him at beer drinking, he had made no further attempt to assert his paternal authority, and allowed his son to come and go about the house at any hours he pleased. Only he could not give him money, for the noble youth's escapades had cleared him out of a year's income in advance. As he himself put it, there was scarcely a halfpenny left for the communion collection.