"Well, what next?"
"Do I know?" he muttered between his teeth, and glared at me desperately with his burning eyes.
So that was the state of affairs.
My old friend's circumstances had never been brilliant. Added to that his love for everything in the shape of drink. Well--and you know where there's a swamp, the frogs will jump in--especially the boy, who had been going it for years, as if the stones at Döbeln were nuggets of gold.
"The debts are mounting?" I asked.
"Sky high, uncle," he said.
"Pretty bad juncture for you," I said. "Mortgages, first, second, third--way over the value of the property, and a lot of rebuilding required, and there's nothing to be earned from farming on the estate. The very chickens know that."
"Then good--bye to the army?" he asked, and looked me full in the face, as if expecting to hear sentence pronounced by the judge of a court martial.
"Unless you have a friend to pull you out of the hole."
He shook his head, fuming.