BOOK ONE: YESTERDAY vance carefully, with Nordic craftiness. Vogelsang suspected adversaries all through the sehool. He elassified them. Out of the entire Lower Sixth, he eould find, for the time being, only two boys fit to join the ranks of his Young Eagles, Max Weber and Werner Rittersteg. Werner Rittersteg had a pale and unhealthy complexion and a high, piping voice. He was the tallest boy in the Lower Sixth. His classmates had nieknamed hirn "Long Lummox." 'He had found Dr, Vogelsang an impressive figure from the start, He had fixed his bulging eyes on the new teaeher with such doglike submissiveness, that the latter had at once no- ticed' hirn. Bernd Vogelsang approved of blind subjection to authority, he interpreted it as manly loyalty. He considered the boy Rittersteg worthy of acceptance into the ranks of the Young Eagles. The only son of wealthy parents who wanted their boy to go far, Werner Rittersteg had never hitherto, in spite of his height, distinguished hirnself among the rest. Of average intel- ligence, slow of judgment, he had not got on weIl under senior master Heinzius. His reception into the Young Eagles was the first great success of his life. His narrow ehest swelled. It was he whom Dr, Vogelsang had chosen, and he had, with one single exception, rejected the others. There was no doubt that the air of secrecy which hung over the Young Eagles, over their blood-brotherhood, their extraor- dinary, mysterious rites, their secret court was extremely at- tractive to the other boys, so that they envied Weber and Rit- tersteg. Even the level-headed Heinrich Lavendel, when he heard of the enrolment of these two, had said, "Lucky clogs!" The Lang Lummox wished that I-Ieinrich Lavendel had said more. It was precisely that boy, arnong all his companions, upon whom he would have liked to make an impression. He envied and admired the strength and skill with which the other was able to whirl, turn, and twist his short, sturdy body