And when his mother
sent the girl off behind his back, he raised the standard of revolt
and left home altogether. And now he does nothing but breathe fire and
slaughter against the upper classes and all their works. What do you say
to that?"
"My good man, what the deuce has all this got to do with me?"
"Well, I think it's confoundedly plucky of him, anyhow," said Klaus.
"And for my part I shall get to know him if I can. He's read an awful
lot, they say, and has a damned clever head on his shoulders."
On his very first day at the College, Peer had learned who Ferdinand
Holm was, and had studied him with interest. He was a tall,
straight-built fellow with reddish-blond hair and freckled face, and
wore a dark tortoiseshell pince-nez. He did not wear the usual College
cap, but a stiff grey felt hat, and he looked about four or five and
twenty.
"Wait!" thought Peer to himself--"wait, my fine fellow! Yes, you were
there, no doubt, when they turned me out of the churchyard that day. But
all that won't help you here. You may have got the start of me at first,
and learned this, that, and the other, but--you just wait."
But one morning, out in the quadrangle, he noticed that Ferdinand Holm
in his turn was looking at him, in fact was putting his glasses straight
to get a better view of him--and Peer turned round at once and walked
away.
Ferdinand, however, had been put into a higher class almost at once, on
the strength of his matriculation.
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