"The devil! You're living high, Roth! I wish I had such easy times myself. What's up?" said Schmitz, in amazement.
"I have my birthday anniversary but once a year," remarked Roth, sententiously, "and on such occasions it's worth while spending something."
His wife poured the wine into the green "Römer,"[11] and each of the three raised a glass of wine whose delicious, flower-like perfume and whose straw-yellow color told them that this noble grape-juice had been distilled by the sun on one of the favored hills rising steeply along the banks of the upper Moselle. Then they cried, "Prosit" and clinked, so that the fine glass emitted a bell-like sound. Then they sipped with the air of connoisseurs. The little scene was an unconscious imitation of similar ones they had often noticed the officers of the garrison enact with a certain solemnity. In wine-growing countries they enshroud with a time-honored ceremonial the ceremony of drinking wine of quality.
[11] "Römer," the name of prettily shaped glasses, usually of amber or emerald hue, in which Rhine and Moselle wines are served.--TR.
The two men lit their cigars, each bearing the well-known narrow band of a famous importing firm, and next they refilled their glasses. They had another hour until the time for the evening stable service should come, and there was nothing to do meanwhile, for First Lieutenant Specht, temporarily in command of the reserve squadron, never appeared during the afternoon service. Hence, there would be no disturbance.
"Will you be off on leave at Christmas?" asked Roth of his friend.
"Don't know yet," Schmitz replied, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I should like to, for I haven't been outside this dirty hole of a town for two years; but it is hardly worth my while to undertake such a long trip for the few days, for I don't suppose I should get more than a week off, and it takes me forty-eight hours to reach my home--it's at the other end of the world, you know--and that much to return. So I should have but a couple of days to myself, after all my trouble and expense."
"About thirty marks, and I haven't that much to spare."
"Well, you can laugh, of course," retorted Schmitz, good-naturedly. "It wouldn't mean anything to you. But suppose you haven't got that much money, what then?"