““He turns again to the others. I dislike his talk; it goes against my grain to hear him speak so contemptuously of cobblers. They make as good soldiers as the finer folk, anyway. Adolf Bethke was a cobbler, for that matter,—and he knew a sight more about war than a good many majors. It was the man that counted with us, not his occupation. —I eye the accountant dispraisingly. He is throwing about quotations now, and it may well be that he has ladled in culture with a spoon—but if it ever came to that again and some one had to bring me in under fire, I would sooner put my trust in Adolf Bethke.””