‘Please to declare the Abfuhr!’ said the Swabian second relinquishing his glass and turning sharply to the umpire.
‘Saxonia is led away,’ declared the Westphalian chief, making a note of the fact in his pocket-book, and shutting up his watch.
Before he had finished speaking, Hollenstein had given up his sword and was beginning to disarm, while a fox wiped the perspiration from his placid pink face.
‘Nicely done, old man,’ said Greif, coming up to him.
‘I like that way of doing it, do not you?’ inquired Hollenstein with a childlike smile. ‘I practised all last summer on my father’s orderly. You know we always keep fencing things at home.’
‘And how did the soldier like it?’ asked Greif with a laugh.
‘Better than you would,’ replied the other laughing, too. ‘He is a clever churl and has discovered the answer to the attack. Give me some beer, little fox!’
The novice obeyed, and a Homeric draught interrupted the interview. Greif turned to Rex, upon whose face the iron eyepieces were being adjusted. All the Swabians present were collected around him, excepting the second, who sat in solitary glory by his beer, opposite the Rhine Korps, awaiting events with stolid indifference.
‘Take care!’ said Greif whispering into the ear of his friend. ‘I have never seen you fence, and Bauer’s cartes are famous.’
‘Remember the big horn!’ said some of the men around him.