"Just what I expected! They do look awfully smart, really! And do you remember the address of the shop?"
"No."
"What a pity! But, if you don't mind, I will send my servant to you to copy it off the lining. May I?"
Again Reimers was silent for a moment, then he said: "I have no objection, if you think it important."
Landsberg brought his heels together with a click, bowed, and murmured: "You are very kind; I shall certainly do so."
Then he moved away with, "Thank you so much."
Reimers turned away. He suddenly found the room too hot, and he walked up and down for a time in the cooler air of the vestibule. All the doors were open. In the mess-room the staff-officers and the captains were standing near the table, which was already laid. It was a few minutes before half-past seven. Only the colonel had not come yet.
Andreae, the senior staff-surgeon, gave Reimers a friendly nod through the doorway. Reimers was his show patient. The specialist had shrugged his shoulders, but he, Andreae, had not thrown up the sponge. The thing was in reality quite simple. It only needed, like other military affairs, initiative. The right diagnosis must be made as promptly as possible, and the right treatment must follow without delay. Then all went well, as in this case--unless, indeed, something went wrong. Yes, indeed, this patient was a triumph which should finally reduce to silence those civilian colleagues of his who considered a military surgeon competent at most to deal with venereal diseases and broken bones.
Reimers listened in an absent-minded way to his long-winded deliverances on the subject of acclimatisation, taking furtive glances the while at the other officers in the mess-room.
They also seemed in no way changed. Major Lischke and Captain von Wegstetten were still at loggerheads, Lischke blustering away in his loud voice, and Wegstetten assuming his most ironical expression. Captain Stuckardt was listening in a half-hearted way; he had quite recently been put on the list for promotion to the staff, and consequently wore a rather preoccupied look. Hitherto he had found the charge of one battery difficult enough, and now he would have to command three. Undisturbed by the dispute, the captain of the fifth battery, Mohr, had sat down to the table by himself; he was always thirsty, and had already disposed of half a bottle of champagne. Madelung, fresh from the Far East, paced up and down with short nervous steps between him and the disputing officers. In passing, he glanced at the two fighting-cocks with a kind of scornful pity, and at the silent toper with contempt. Major Schrader and Captain von Gropphusen were whispering and chuckling together in a window nook. They had one inexhaustible theme--women; while forage was the favourite topic of the two men standing beneath the chandelier--Träger and Heuschkel, the officers commanding the first and second batteries. The third battery had the fattest horses in the regiment--"and the laziest," said the colonel; nevertheless, it must be allowed, that when the inspector from the Ministry of War paid his visit, it was an uncommonly pleasant sight to see the hind-quarters of those horses shining so round and sleek in their stalls.