[Footnote A: A one-year volunteer who elects to remain on in the army and await promotion.--Translator.]
Reimers had chosen a place near the little lieutenant of doctor's degree, who was quite an amusing fellow, and chattered away so glibly that his neighbour hardly needed to contribute to the conversation.
Of course Fröben had begun: "Well, Reimers, fire away! Give us some leaves from your military diary. We are all ears!" But Reimers soon changed the subject. What he had seen and gone through down there among the Boers was still in his own mind a dim, confused chaos of impressions, and it was repugnant to him to touch on it even superficially, so long as he was not clear about it himself.
The little doctor began to dilate on the splendid German East-African line of steamers, which conveyed one for a mere trifle from Hamburg to Naples, by way of Antwerp, Oporto, and Lisbon, and he enlarged at great length on the educational influence of long journeys in general and of sea-voyages in particular.
Reimers listened patiently, letting his eyes wander round the table. Just as of old, the various groups still kept together, and were continuing their conversations uninterruptedly. Falkenhein, in their midst, listened with amusement as the senior staff-surgeon chaffed Stuckhardt about that oldest and yet newest of nervous diseases--"majoritis." Madelung was looking rather glum, and kept twirling the little silver wheel of the knife-rest. Next to him, Mohr was staring straight before him with glassy eyes, and Schrader leant back in his chair laughing, while Gropphusen still kept on talking to him.
"He's got something to laugh about!" said Fröben to his neighbour, interrupting his discourse.
"How do you mean?" asked Reimers.
"Well, to put it delicately, Schrader has got a flirtation on with Frau von Gropphusen--a very intimate flirtation!"
"Indeed!" Reimer responded indifferently.
Here was a fine piece of gossip, and strange to say, in this, too, things were as before; it was not the first time that Major Schrader and Frau von Gropphusen had afforded material for conversation.