‘He shall drum till the hair flies about the place,’ answered the second, with an unusual flight of rhetoric, as he slipped on his overcoat and went out.
‘You are not going?’ asked the students as Greif showed signs of following his brother-officer.
‘I cannot leave Rex waiting,’ objected Greif.
‘Send for him to come here! If he really means to fight, he is not such a Philistine as we thought!’ cried two or three.
‘If you like, I will send for him,’ answered Greif. ‘Here, little fox!’ he exclaimed, addressing a beardless youth of vast proportions who sat silent at the end of the table. ‘Go to the Palmengarten and say that Greifenstein wishes Herr Rex to come here. Introduce yourself properly before speaking to him.’
The huge-limbed boy rose without a word, gravely saluted and left the room. Greif was his idol, the type which he aspired to imitate, and he obeyed him like a lamb.
‘So Rex means to fight,’ remarked one of the young men, who sat opposite to Greif. ‘Was he ever in a Korps?’
‘“The Pinschgau lads went out to fight,”’ hummed the student rather derisively, but he did not proceed further than the first line of the old song. Some of the others laughed, and all smiled at the allusion to the comic battle.
‘Look here, my good Korps brothers,’ said Greif in his dominating tones, ‘I will tell you what it is. Rex means to have it out with Bauer to-morrow morning. If he turns out a coward and backs down the ground before the Rhine fellow, you can make game of him as you please, and you know very well that I shall have nothing more to do with him, and that he will be suspended from all intercourse with the Korps. I have my own ideas about what he will do, though Bauer is a devil at deep-carte and has a long arm. Until the question is settled you have no right to laugh at an honourable man who is to be our guest-at-arms, because he is not a Korps student. He is our guest as much as the chief of the Heidelberg Saxo-Prussians was when he came over last spring to fight the first in charge of the Franks. Every man who wants to fight deserves respect until he has shown that he is afraid to stand by his words. There--that is all I have to say, and you know I am right. Here is a full measure to the health of all good Swabians, and may the yellow and black _schlager_ do good work whether in the hands of guest or fellow. One, two and three! Suabia Hoch!’