He had been brought up by the tenderest of mothers at the castle of Schlodien (I think in Silesia), had early joined the Cuirassiers of the Body Guard, had fought a fatal duel in which he had been the aggressor, and had been condemned to the Fortress of Spandau. Only his mother's great influence (exercised without the knowledge of his stern and much older father, who was then on his distant estates) had secured for him an opportunity to escape. He had come directly to America, and had remained near Boston until he received intimation (again the result of his mother's influence with Baron Gerolt, the Prussian Minister at Washington) that his return under the Extradition Treaty was being urged at the solicitation of the family of his fallen antagonist. He had then taken refuge in a remote town in South Missouri, where he amused himself with shooting. His mother had written to him but once, and had not been able to send him money. He had at last returned to St. Louis, where he had contracted some small debts which Voisin and another kind friend had assumed. To reimburse them and to gain more perfect seclusion, he had resolved to enlist in the Regular Army. It was a sad conclusion of his career, but as an honorable man (and a pursued one) he had no choice but to accept it. It was the old story,--_noblesse oblige_. There was but one way out of a sad affair, and--like a very Graf zu--this stripling, who had been born and bred to a better fate, faced the penalty of his misfortune without flinching. I tried infinite suggestions, but nothing else offered the immediate money which alone could relieve him of debt and restore him his wardrobe and the portraits of his mother and sister, which with a few well-worn letters, were all he had to cheer him in his exile. We sat till far into the night and until my kindest sympathies were fully aroused by the utter and almost childlike simplicity and frankness with which the poor boy told of his sorrows. I had been taught by a very ample experience to look with much caution on German counts and barons,--an experience that, if it was worth what it had cost, I could not prize too highly; but here was an entirely new type, a combination of the gentlest breeding with an unsophistication that argued more of a mother's care than of garrison influences, and an utter absence of the devil-may-care manner that army life in Germany had hitherto seemed to give. With the improvidence of one who had never known the lack of money, he had lodged himself at the Everett House; and as I left him at its door, I resolved to lose no time in getting him enlisted and stopping an expense that would only add to his troubles. The next day I saw the official who had charge of the making up of the city's quota, and easily arranged for the examination of my candidate. Dohna begged me to secure his admission to a command whose officers would be able to appreciate his difficult position, and a weary time I had of it.