Still, his title gave his wife the right to call herself "Frau Hauptmannin;" while, as my wife she was merely "Constablerinn"—a degradation intolerable to any proud-spirited woman.
I tried to purchase at least a lieutenant's commission; but there were fifty-six applicants for the position ahead of me; and there was no telling how many years I should have to wait for my turn.
My wife at last became so sensitive that, in order to escape being addressed by the inferior title, she ceased to go out of the house; and when she had occasion to make mention of me to any one, she always spoke, or wrote, in this wise: "The husband of the widow of Captain Tobias van der Bullen." That honorable and high-born gentlemen, is how I came to be called—through no fault of mine!—by my twelfth false name: "Tobias van der Bullen."
I must confess, it was an extremely dull life. Of what use to us were the hoards of gold in the treasure-chests? We did not know how to spend them. I did not drink wine; I was not allowed to smoke at home, because it was an unclean habit. And I was always at home, when not at the barracks, because I had nowhere else to go.
At the merchants' casino, of which I might have become a member had I so elected, all the conversation was about matters I could not endure. The men were so grave and sedate, there was no fun in trying to play tricks on them; and the women were virtuous to such a degree, that not one of them would have allowed a barn-yard cock to scratch worms for more than one hen.
As all married men know, women are peculiar creatures. There are times when they become impressed with a desire to possess certain things that—so say the sagacious doctors—it is unwise, nay dangerous, to refuse to gratify the request. I have heard said, that a woman has been known to long for a dish of shoemaker's paste; another believed she would collapse if she did not get a frog to devour; still another, vowed she could not survive, if her husband did not rise from his bed at midnight, and hasten to the nearest grocery for a box of superfine wagon grease!
Now, my wife was seized with a longing to possess a sheet of parchment—a desire, you will say, that might easily have been gratified. But, the sort of parchment she wanted did not grow on every bush! A document, engrossed with the words which certified that her husband was a captain, was what she craved. But, where was I to procure it?
Chance one day brought me face to face with an old acquaintance, Mynheer Ruissen. He recognized me at once. It would have been useless to deny my identity; moreover, there had been established between us a certain good-fellowship that justified me in believing I might safely take him into my confidence.
He told me how zealously the officers of the law were searching throughout Germany for the fugitive, who had substituted tin church-vessels for the gold and silver ones used in the Templars' castle; and for having caused the wonderful metamorphosis of the Hamburg moo-calf.
("Fine phrases for robbery, and assassination!" commented the chair).