“That they should fight so in the public streets!” said the fat waiter with disapproval, still standing at his post. “One wonders how the teacher can allow it; and they seem to belong to good family, too.”
“It isn’t that that does the harm,” grunted the old colonel. “Young people must have their liberty, teachers can’t always be keeping an eye on them. Boys all fight—must fight.”
He rose heavily from his place so that the chair creaked beneath him, scraped the cigar butt out of its holder into the ash-tray, and walked stiffly over to the wall where his hat hung on a nail. At the same time he continued his reverie.
“In young blood like that nature will show itself—everything, just as it really is—afterward, when older, things look all much alike—then one is able to study more carefully—young blood like that.”
The waiter had put his hat into his hand; the colonel took up his tumbler again, in which there were still a few drops of the red wine.
“God bless the youngsters,” he murmured; “they have hardly left me a drop.” He looked, almost sadly, into what remained of the wine, then set the tumbler down again without drinking.
The fat waiter became suddenly alive.
“Will the colonel, perhaps, have another glass?”
The old man, standing at the table, had opened the wine list and was mumbling to himself.
“H’m—another sort, maybe—but one can’t buy it by the glass—only by the bottle—somewhat too much.”