the effect of the return of the corporal, the consul taxed her with
faithlessness. But Trudschen looked grave.
"Ah! He has new friends, this Karl of ours. He cares no more for poor
girls like us. When fine ladies like the old Frau von Wimpfel make much
of him, what will you?"
It appeared, indeed, from Trudschen's account, that the widow of a
wealthy shopkeeper had made a kind of protege of the young soldier,
and given him presents. Furthermore, that the wife of his colonel had
employed him to act as page or attendant at an afternoon Gesellschaft,
and that since then the wives of other officers had sought him. Did not
the Herr Consul think it was dreadful that this American, who could vote
and make laws, should be subjected to such things?
The consul did not know what to think. It seemed to him, however, that
Karl was "getting on," and that he was not in need of his assistance.
It was in the expectation of hearing more about him, however, that
he cheerfully accepted an invitation from Adlerkreutz to dine at the
Caserne one evening with the staff. Here he found, somewhat to his
embarrassment, that the dinner was partly in his own honor, and at the
close of five courses, and the emptying of many bottles, his health was
proposed by the gallant veteran Adlerkreutz in a neat address of many
syllables containing all the parts of speech and a single verb. It was
to the effect that in his soul-friend the Herr Consul and himself was
the never-to-be-severed union of Germania and Columbia, and in their
perfect understanding was the war-defying alliance of two great nations,
and that in the consul's noble restoration of Unser Karl to the German
army there was the astute diplomacy of a great mind. He was satisfied
that himself and the Herr Consul still united in the great future,
looking down upon a common brotherhood,--the great Germanic-American
Confederation,--would feel satisfied with themselves and each other
and their never-to-be-forgotten earth-labors. Cries of "Hoch! Hoch!"
resounded through the apartment with the grinding roll of heavy-bottomed
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