Behrens ran on without noticing: “⁠—and if you stop another round half year and do particular pipe-clay, why, you’ll be a made man, you can take Constantinople singlehanded; you’ll be strong enough to command a regiment of Samsons⁠—”

Who knows how much more nonsense he might have uttered if Joachim’s unflinching determination to make himself heard had not brought him to a stand.

“Herr Hofrat,” the young man said, “I should like to tell you, if you will pardon me, that I have decided to leave.”

“What’s that? So you want to leave? I thought you wanted to go down later as a sound man, to be a soldier.”

“No, I must leave now, Herr Hofrat, in a week, that is.”

“Do you mean what you say? You want to hop out of the frying-pan into the fire? You’re going to hook it? Don’t you call that desertion?”