‘I wish you would not sing that song!’ exclaimed Greif, a little impatiently. ‘There will be time enough to exercise your voice upon it when we begin to throw away the torches.’
‘It is the only song I ever heard that has any truth in it,’ answered Rex.
‘You ought to write one about the vortex, and call it the physicist’s Lament,’ laughed the other.
‘The idea is not new. Scheffel made geological jokes in verse and sang them.’
‘Go thou and do likewise! But do not make the idea of turning into a philistine more unpleasant than it naturally is.’
‘We have all been through it,’ said Rex, ‘and most of us have survived the change. With insects, the caterpillar turns into the pretty moth. With Korps students, the butterfly becomes sooner or later a crawling, philistine grub. The moral superiority of the worm over the moth is manifest in his works. Have you read your speech over?’
‘I know it by heart. Help me with the scarf, will you?’ ‘Vanity of vanities!’ laughed Rex as he began to knot the coloured silk.
Greif’s costume is worth a word of description. He wore a close-fitting yellow jacket, heavily trimmed with black, white and yellow frogs and crossed cords, in the hussar fashion, and finished at the neck in the military manner with a stiff high collar. His legs were encased in tight breeches of white leather, and long polished boots with riding flaps were drawn above the knee. The long straight rapier hung in its gleaming sheath by his side, the colours of the Korps being done in velvet upon the basket-hilt. Over his right shoulder he wore a heavy silk scarf of the three colours, which was tied in a big knot near the sword-hilt. Upon his bright hair a very small round cap, no bigger than a saucer, and richly embroidered with gold, was held in its place by mysterious means, involving the concealment of a piece of elastic beneath his short curls. Upon the table lay a pair of white leather gauntlets. The whole effect was theatrical, but in the surroundings for which the dress was intended, it could not fail to be both striking and harmonious. It displayed to the best advantage the young man’s fine proportions and athletic figure, and where there were to be hundreds similarly arrayed, with only a difference of colour to distinguish their even ranks, the result could not differ greatly from a military parade. Indeed the costume is not more gaudy than many modern uniforms and is certainly as tasteful.
‘I am sorry it is the last time,’ said Greif sadly, as his friend finished the knot. Then he went to the window and looked once more at the dim outline of the cathedral spire and listened to the water rushing through its cold bed in the dusk far below. He knew that he should look out but a few times more. He did not know that this time was the last. Rex was looking for his overcoat, and as he moved about the room he sang softly another stanza of the old song—
‘Short and sweet this life of ours,
Soon its cord must sever!
Death comes quick, nor brooks delay,
Ruthless, he tears us away,
No man spares he ever.’