"That is true," said Felix, spreading honey on his bread and butter. "As a matter of fact, I oughtn't to do him the honour of challenging him."
Then a new idea seemed to occur to Felix. "If only," he added fiercely, "he could be stopped from entitling himself lieutenant. That's what offends my sense of honour more than anything."
His old father seemed prepared with an answer to this remark.
"Why should he go on calling himself lieutenant?" he asked, grinning and whistling under his breath. "Only because his superior officers are kept in ignorance of the deception he has practised. If they had an inkling of it, they'd be down on him fast enough."
Felix understood. "You mean we ought----" he began.
But Felix's hypersensitive sense of honour again felt itself outraged. "Remember that I am an officer, father," he exclaimed indignantly. "Your proposal is in the highest degree insulting."
The host shrugged his shoulders. "Very well; if you don't wish it, leave it alone," he said.
Then the honourable young man saw a way of escape.
"If only it could be done without a signature," he meditated aloud.
"That difficulty is easily overcome," responded the old man. "I have a scheme in my head. Let me draw it up. All you've got to do will be to sign your name with the others at the foot. Then it will be only one of many."
On the afternoon of the same day, the parish crier, Hoffmann, invited all the country's defenders in the village to assemble at the Black Eagle. It was the merest matter of form, a tribute to the importance of the business to be discussed, for they were certain to have turned up there of their own accord sooner or later without an invitation. The tables were soon full (Schranden had sent a contingent of thirty warriors to the War of Liberty); and when Herr Merckel saw glasses emptying to right and left of him, he stepped behind the bar, and exchanging glances with his son, rubbed his hands with satisfaction, and began the following harangue:--
"Dear fellow-burghers, I desire to speak a few words to you. You are all brave soldiers, and have fought in many a bloody battle for your Fatherland in its dire extremity. You must have often been thirsty in those days, and have longed for even a few drops of dirty ditch-water. It's only to your credit, then, that after the heat and burden of the war, you turn into the Black Eagle occasionally, for a good draught of pale ale. You have earned it honestly with the sweat of your brow. Your health, soldiers!"