I do not know what I expected him to do. He did not faint, nor call upon Heaven for strength.
He eyed me as one does a horse offered for sale. He was of the younger school--smart, cool and efficient; a handsome, spare man, pink and white above a shaven blueness. In manner he was of a suavely sinister politeness that thinly covered real cruelty.
"Take off that tunic," he said.
I obeyed with alacrity.
"Yes, the trousers are too short," he observed, and added: "Are you a natural fool, that you come before me with trousers that are too short?"
"Oui, mon Capitaine," I replied. I felt I was a natural fool, to be there in those, or in any other, trousers.
"And look at your boots. Each is big enough to contain both your feet. Are you an unnatural fool to come before me in such boots?"
"Oui, mon Capitaine," I replied. I felt I was an unnatural fool, to be there in those, or in any other, boots.
"I will make a note of it, recruit," said the officer, and I felt he had said more than any roaring Sergeant, shouting definite promises of definite punishments.
"Have the goodness to go," he continued in his silky-steely voice, "and return in trousers twice as large and boots half as big. You may tell the Sergent-Fourrier that he will shortly hear something to his disadvantage. . . . It will interest him in you. . . ."
It did. It interested all the denizens of that horrible storeroom, that stank of stale leather, stale fustian, stale brass, and stale people.
("I would get them into trouble, would I? . . . I would bring reprimands and punishments upon senior Sergeants, would I? . . . Oh, Ho! and Ah, Ha! Let me but wait until I was in their hands . . . !")
A little later, I was sent back to the Captain's room, in the identical clothes that I had worn on the first visit. My trousers were braced to my chin, the leather ends of the legs were pulled further forward over the boots, a piece of cloth was folded and pushed up the back of my tunic, my sleeves were pulled back, and a fold or tuck of the cloth was made inside each elbow. A crushed-up ball of brown paper relieved my ears of some of the weight of my shako.
"You come back here again, unpassed by the Captain, and I swear I'll have you in prison within the week," promised the Sergent-Fourrier.
I thanked him and shuffled back.
My Captain eyed me blandly across the table, as I saluted.
"Trousers are now too big," he observed, "and the tunic too small. Are you really determined to annoy me, recruit?" he added. "If so, I must take steps to protect myself. . . . Kindly return and inform the Sergent-Fourrier that I will interview him later. . . ."
Pending that time, the Sergent-Fourrier and his myrmidons interviewed me. They also sent me back in precisely the same garments; this time with trousers braced only to my breast and with the sleeves of my tunic as they had been at first.
My Captain was not in his room, and I promptly returned and told the truth--that he had found no fault in me this time. . . .
Eventually I dragged my leaden-footed, swaddled, creaking carcase from the store, burdened with an extra tunic, an extra pair of incredible trousers, an extra pair of impossible boots, a drill-jacket, a képi, two canvas stable-suits, an overcoat, a huge cape, two pairs of thick white leather gauntlets big enough for Goliath of Gath, two terrible shirts, two pairs of pants, a huge pair of clogs, and no socks at all.
Much of this impedimenta was stuffed into a big canvas bag.
With this on my back-hand looking like Bunyan's Christian and feeling like no kind of Christian, I staggered to my room.
Here, Corporal Lepage, in a discourse punctuated with brandified hiccups, informed me that I must mark each article with my matricule number, using for that purpose stencils supplied by the Sergent-Fourrier.
Feeling that more than stencils would be supplied by that choleric and unsocial person, if I again encountered him ere the sun had gone down upon his wrath, I bethought me of certain advice given me in Paris by my friend de Lannec--and cast about for one in search of lucrative employment.
Seated on the next bed to mine, and polishing his sword, was a likely-looking lad. He had a strong and pleasing face, calm and thoughtful in expression, and with a nice fresh air of countrified health.
"Here, comrade," said I, "do you want a job and a franc or two?"
"Yes, sir," he replied, "or two jobs and a franc or three . . . I am badly broke, and I am also in peculiar and particular need to square Corporal Lepage."
I found that his name was Dufour, that he was the son of a horse-dealer, and had had to do with both horses and gentlemen to a considerable extent.
From that hour he became my friend and servant, to the day when he gave his life for France and for me, nearly twenty years later. He was very clever, honest and extremely brave; a faithful, loyal, noble soul.
I engaged him then and there; and his first job in my service was to get my kit stencilled, cleaned and arranged en paquetage on the shelves.
He then helped me to make myself as presentable as was possible in the appalling uniform that had been issued to me, for I had to pass the Guard (and in full dress, as it was now noon) in order to get out to my hotel where my other uniforms, well cut by my own tailor, were awaiting me, together with boots of regulation pattern, made for me in Paris.
To this day I do not know how I managed to waddle past the Sergeant of the Guard, my sword held in a gloved hand that felt as though cased in cast iron, my big shako wobbling on my head, and the clumsy spurs of my vast and uncontrollable boots catching in the leather ends of my vaster trousers.
I did it however, with Dufour's help; and, a few minutes later, was in my own private room and tearing the vile things from my outraged person.
As I sat over my coffee, at a quarter to nine that evening, after a tolerable dinner and a bottle of Mouton Rothschild, dreaming great dreams, I was brought back to hard facts by the sudden sound of the trumpeters of the Blue Hussars playing the retraite in the Place.
That meant that, within a quarter of an hour, they would march thence back to Barracks, blowing their instant summons to all soldiers who had not a late pass--and that I must hurry.
My return journey was a very different one from my last, for my uniform, boots, and shako fitted me perfectly; my gauntlets enabled me to carry my sword easily ("in left hand; hilt turned downwards and six inches behind hip; tip of scabbard in front of left foot," etc.), and feeling that I could salute any officer or non-commissioned officer otherwise than by flapping a half-empty sleeve at him.
Once more I felt like a man and almost like a soldier. My spirits rose nearly to the old Eton level.
They sank to the new Barrack level, however, when I entered the room in which I was to live for a year, and its terrific and terrible stench took me by the throat. As I stood at the foot of my bed, as everybody else did, awaiting the evening roll-call, I began to think I should be violently unwell; and by the time the Sergeant of the Week had
