The Rittmeister has a marked resemblance to a peppercorn. He is very small, very hard and very strong. A handshake with him is an athletic exercise. His glance is clear and open, like that of a ten-year-old boy. You can hear him laughing over the next hill. He cannot tell stories; nor will he. All that he told me was that his veterinary had saved the life of a little girl, taking twenty-three splinters of a Russian shell out of her body, and that thirty-six members of his family were in the field. Rittmeister Farkas won his fame in Galicia. A Cossack sergeant rushed at him and tried to spit him with a lance. Farkas broke the lance under his armpit and then crushed the sergeant's head with the butt of a revolver. He gave the lance to the Heir Apparent. That was his first exploit. Then came his first "action." He is posted one day in Russian Poland with his hussars as support behind the artillery. A heavy Russian shell explodes in his neighborhood, and as it throws up the earth it uncovers a telephone wire. Farkas notices the wire, takes hold of it and follows it. The hussars dig up the ground over it and find that it leads to a farmhouse. They dig no further and conceal themselves. Near the farmhouse is a well. Every few minutes a Russian peasant comes to the well, works the draw pump and calls something down into the depths. They seize the peasant and he turns out to be a Russian soldier in disguise. Farkas takes his favorite sergeant, Galambos, and three hussars, gets a long, stout rope and slides, with his four men, down into the well. A yard above the surface of the water he finds a stone shelving and under the shelving an opening, which leads into a dark tunnel. Now everything is cleared up. This region was once an artillery practice field; no wonder that it is so nicely fitted out. They push into the tunnel and come to a telephone cell, in which three Russians sit by candlelight before a modern field telephone. From there the Russian field artillery is directed according to the information shouted down the well. Farkas throws his revolver away. One of the Russians, knife in hand, hurls himself upon him. Farkas seizes the wrist of the Russian and breaks it, for he is a master of jiu jitsu; he instructs his men constantly in Japanese ring methods. Two Russians are killed. The one with his wrist broken confesses that the telephone cell is a signal station and that the little detachment is a signal patrol. He also delivers to Farkas a textbook containing the A B C of more than 300 light signals. Light signals are given with lamp groups, which consist of two, five or eight lamps. They can send almost any kind of news.