ee the gentleman of the night before, still dressed in his wrapper,
brown the color of cachou, who advances majestically, followed by a
train of nurses. It was the major. Scarcely inside, he rolls his dull
green eyes from right to left and from left to right, plunges his hands
in his pockets and bawls:

"Number One, show your leg--your dirty leg. Eh, it's in a bad shape,
that leg, that sore runs like a fountain; lotion of bran and water,
lint, half-rations, a strong licorice tea. Number Two, show your
throat--your dirty throat. It's getting worse and worse, that throat;
the tonsils will be cut out to-morrow."

"But, doctor--"

"Eh, I am not asking anything from you, am I? Say one word and I'll put
you on a diet."

"But, at least--"

"Put that man on a diet. Write: diet, gargles, strong licorice tea."

In that vein he passed all the sick in review, prescribing for all, the
syphilitics and the wounded, the fevered and the dysentery patients his
strong licorice tea. He stopped in front of me, stared into my face,
tore off my covering, punched my stomach with his fist, ordered
albuminated water for me, the inevitable tea; and went out snorting and
dragging his feet.

Life was difficult with the men who were about us. There were twenty-one
in our sleeping quarters. At my left slept my friend, the painter; on
my right, a great devil of a trumpeter, with face pocked like a sewing
thimble and yellow as a glass of bile. He combined two professions, that
of cobbler by day and a procurer of girls by night. He was, in other
respects, a comical fellow who frisked about on his hands, or on his
head, telling you in the most naive way in the world the manner in which
he expedited at the toe of his boot the work of his menials, or intoned
in a touching voice sentimental songs:

"I have cherished in my sorrow--ow
But the friendship of a swallow--ow."

I conquered his good graces by giving him twenty sous to buy a liter of
wine with, and we did well in not being on bad terms with him, for
the rest of our quarters--composed in part of attorneys of the Rue
Maubuee--were well disposed to pick a quarrel with us.

One night, among others, the 15th of August, Francis Emonot threatened
to box the ears of two men who had taken his towel. There was a
formidable hubbub in the dormitory. Insults rained, we were treated to
"roule-en-coule et de duchesses." Being two against nineteen, we were
in a fair way of getting a regular d