You must remember him,--his name was
Jorg, and he had stiff, black hair. He always pelted us with something
whenever he got a chance,--with green apples or pears, and in winter
with snow-balls,--and always called us 'aristocrats.'"
"Oh, that fellow!" cried Max. "Yes; now I do remember all about him.
Certainly he always called us 'aristocrats.' I wonder how he got hold of
that word. He was a disagreeable fellow: I remember that well. I caught
him once thrashing a little fellow most cruelly. I helped the little
one, and he shouted after me at least twelve times in succession,
'Aristocrat, aristocrat!' And now it comes back to me about the other
one, the lean Andrew, his brother. He was your Andrew, was he not,
Marie?--the Andrew with the violets? Oh, now I comprehend this great
friendship," said Max, laughing again.
"What is this about the violets? I want to know all about that," said
the colonel.
"Oh! I can see the whole thing just as it happened as plainly as if it
were only yesterday," said Max, quite animated over his recollections.
"I must tell you all about it, Otto. You have probably heard from your
wife that we had here, in the happy time of our childhood, an old
schoolmaster, whose creed was that all faults could be whipped out of,
and all virtues be whipped into, the children under his care. So he felt
himself constrained to whip a great deal either for one thing or the
other, and very often for both at once.
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