Considering the quality of many of the garrisons, it is not to be wondered at if Austrian officers are occasionally at a loss for acceptable means of killing time. However hard the round of work, there are bound to be off-days, as well as many long winter evenings which are apt to hang heavy on the hands of a normally constituted lieutenant, reduced for weeks at a time to his own society or that of one other comrade. Almost everything is tried, from promiscuous love-making to taming wild animals and cultivating musical instruments, varied by wood-carving and even by the fabrication of rockets and toy balloons. An acquaintance of mine became so proficient in this latter branch that his comrades were shy of entering his room for fear of something or other exploding. At one time L—— spent his leisure in taming three wolf cubs which a peasant had brought him—three balls of grey fluff huddled together in a basket. A big, unused barn became their residence, and here they grew up together with a young wolf-hound, who, curiously enough, easily swayed the rod of the community. No one but L——, who fed them personally, was allowed to enter the barn. As a gauge of their appetites an incident is worth recording. A private's horse had broken its leg and had to be shot. This struck L—— as a windfall for his ménagerie, so having purchased the carcase from Das hohe Aerar, he caused it to be thrown into the barn, and then went his way, convinced that he would not have to bother about food for another week at least.