"'I cannot.'—'Nor can I. Take the letter I have pushed under the door. Read it and then destroy it. Good-bye.'
"I tried to talk more, but there was no answer. So I read the letter. It ran something like this:
'My father has locked me in. I can tell you nothing through the door. But you may trust Fanny. She will do anything for a tip. I have no money, but you have.'
And it was signed Mitzi D."
I look at the Sergeant. He seems no more interested in my story than if I were preaching a sermon in a Sunday School. Of course, I keep the sequel to myself, namely, how Fanny and I conspired to call in a locksmith who promised to make a key within two hours, but forgot to tell us that these two hours were to begin only three days later. Punctuality is a virtue of which no workman ever wishes to pride himself, not even in Austria.
The Sergeant has an air as though he were dreaming, an absent-minded air which he sometimes assumes. When he is visionary like that, nothing can make him follow other people's thoughts. But he makes no secrets of his ideas, and sooner or later we learn what is in his mind. So I wait in the respectful silence a Lance-Corporal owes to his superior officer.
Suddenly he jumps up.
"P.C.," he cries, "I firmly believe that I will get my commission to-day!"
It was about time he did get it! Thrice already he has purchased an officer's kit. Twice he has lost it. Let us hope that the third will serve.
"And whence does that belief come?" I ask him.