"Would you like to put your letter in one of these envelopes?" continued
the official.

The beaming face and eyes of Karl were a sufficient answer. After all,
it was a small favor granted to this odd waif, who seemed to still cling
to the consular protection. He handed him the envelope and left him
addressing it in boyish pride.

It was Karl's last visit to the consulate. He appeared to have spoken
truly, and the consul presently learned that he had indeed been
transferred, through some high official manipulation, to the personal
service of the governor of Rheinfestung. There was weeping among the
Dienstmadchen of Schlachtstadt, and a distinct loss of originality and
lightness in the gatherings of the gentler Hausfrauen. His memory
still survived in the barracks through the later editions of his
former delightful stupidities,--many of them, it is to be feared,
were inventions,--and stories that were supposed to have come from
Rheinfestung were described in the slang of the Offiziere as being
"colossal." But the consul remembered Rheinfestung, and could not
imagine it as a home for Karl, or in any way fostering his peculiar
qualities. For it was eminently a fortress of fortresses, a magazine of
magazines, a depot of depots. It was the key of the Rhine, the citadel
of Westphalia, the "Clapham Junction" of German railways, but defended,
fortified, encompassed, and controlled by the newest as well as the
oldest devices of military strategy and science. Even in the pipingest
time of peace, whole railway trains went into it like a rat in a trap,
and might have never come out of it; it stretched out an inviting
hand and arm across the river that might in the twinkling of an eye be
changed into a closed fist of menace. You "defiled" into it, commanded
at every step by enfilading walls; you "debouched" out of it, as you