[BOUND FOR AMERICA.]
BY MATTHEW WHITE, JUN.
The clock in the castle had just sounded forth the hour of noon. It was in the little German town of Hausewitz, and the narrow, roughly paved street that ran in front of the High School was soon filled with students, all wearing tiny green caps set jauntily on the side of the head, and seemingly stuck there with mucilage.
"Yes, Albert," one of a pair was saying, as the two strolled off homeward together, "the time has come to carry out our plan."
"It has," solemnly responded the other, who was rather a delicate-looking youth with blue eyes and yellow hair. "Now or never; but which way shall we go?"
"Oh, I'll attend to that later, if you'll only say you're ready whenever I am;" and Rudolph Schweizer looked down upon his companion (who was a few inches shorter than himself) with a sort of majestic air that he no doubt thought eminently befitting the only son of one of the first lawyers in Hausewitz.
Before Albert could reply, some friends joined them, and the subject was dropped.
Now the project about which there was this touch of mystery was no less a one than that of emigrating to America, in order to escape serving in the army. The lads had selected the United States as their destination, because they imagined that there everybody speedily became possessed of fabulous wealth, as all the tourists from that country who put up for a night or two at the Golden Grape-vine Hotel seemed to be blessed with an unlimited supply of money.
They had been cherishing the scheme for months, and from having talked it over so often it had come to assume to them the proportions of an event that had almost grown into an actuality.