His eyes began to kindle, and his daughter, who knew what was coming, loosened his arms and rose.
"Why, in the battle of——"
"Ja, ja, father," Frau Weyland interrupted with a half smile. When her father began on his battles time might go its way unheeded. "I know, you have told me. But come now, we have forgotten our little Bettina. She must at once go to bed. It is late enough, goodness knows."
Then she unpinned Bettina's shawl and shook out the damp.
"Good-night, dear father," she kissed the old man tenderly, "sleep well, and I'll call you in time in the morning. Oh, the sausage is from Gretchen? Many thanks and good-night. Come, come, Bettina," and she started towards her own room.
Her father proceeded in the opposite direction. On the threshold of a second door he paused.
"Annchen," he called, for his daughter had departed.
"Ja, father," she came back to her door holding Bettina by the hand.
"He called our generals 'old wigs,' 'old wigs,' did you understand, daughter? The generals of the Great Frederick's army, and he, an upstart villain of a Corsican. Old wigs, indeed! Let him wait, the monster, we'll show him, we'll show him."
With a last good-night the old soldier of Frederick the Great departed to snore away under his feather bed quite the same as if nothing had happened.