with his papers?" said the consul persuasively.

"Ach! What does he want with PAPERS when he could make the laws? They
were dumb, stupid things--these papers--to him."

"But his appetite remains good, I hope?" suggested the consul.

This closed the conversation, although Karl came on many other nights,
and his toy figure quite supplanted the tall corporal of hussars in the
remote shadows of the hall. One night, however, the consul returned home
from a visit to a neighboring town a day earlier than he was expected.
As he neared his house he was a little surprised to find the windows of
his sitting-room lit up, and that there were no signs of Trudschen in
the lower hall or passages. He made his way upstairs in the dark and
pushed open the door of his apartment. To his astonishment, Karl was
sitting comfortably in his own chair, his cap off before a student-lamp
on the table, deeply engaged in apparent study. So profound was his
abstraction that it was a moment before he looked up, and the consul had
a good look at his usually beaming and responsive face, which, however,
now struck him as wearing a singular air of thought and concentration.
When their eyes at last met, he rose instantly and saluted, and
his beaming smile returned. But, either from his natural phlegm or
extraordinary self-control he betrayed neither embarrassment nor alarm.

The explanation he gave was direct and simple. Trudschen had gone out
with the Corporal Fritz for a short walk, and had asked him to "keep
house" during their absence. He had no books, no papers, nothing to read
in the barracks, and no chance to improve his mind. He thought the Herr
Consul would not object to his looking at his books. The consul was
touched; it was really a trivial indiscretion and as much Trudschen's