of him was, that he looked in through a window (at the soup, no
doubt) on one leg.
Full of this pleasure, I shortly afterwards departed from the town,
little dreaming of an addition to my good fortune. But more was in
reserve. I went by a train which was heavy with third-class
carriages, full of young fellows (well guarded) who had drawn
unlucky numbers in the last conscription, and were on their way to
a famous French garrison town where much of the raw military
material is worked up into soldiery. At the station they had been
sitting about, in their threadbare homespun blue garments, with
their poor little bundles under their arms, covered with dust and
clay, and the various soils of France; sad enough at heart, most of
them, but putting a good face upon it, and slapping their breasts
and singing choruses on the smallest provocation; the gayest
spirits shouldering half loaves of black bread speared upon their
walking-sticks. As we went along, they were audible at every
station, chorusing wildly out of tune, and feigning the highest
hilarity. After a while, however, they began to leave off singing,
and to laugh naturally, while at intervals there mingled with their
laughter the barking of a dog. Now, I had to alight short of their
destination, and, as that stoppage of the train was attended with a
quantity of horn blowing, bell ringing, and proclamation of what
Messieurs les Voyageurs were to do, and were not to do, in order to
reach their respective destinations, I had ample leisure to go
forward on the platform to take a parting look at my recruits,
whose heads were all out at window, and who were laughing like
delighted children. Then I perceived that a large poodle with a
pink nose, who had been their travelling companion and the cause of
their mirth, stood on his hind-legs presenting arms on the extreme
verge of the platform, ready to salute them as the train went off.
This poodle wore a military shako (it is unnecessary to add, very
much on one side over one eye), a little military coat, and the
regulation white gaiters. He was armed with a little musket and a
little sword-bayonet, and he stood presenting arms in perfect
attitude, with his unobscured eye on his master or superior
officer, who stood by him. So admirable was his discipline, that,
when the train moved, and he was greeted with the parting cheers of
the recruits, and also with a shower of centimes, several of which
struck his shako, and had a tendency to discompose him, he remained
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
staunch on his post, until the train was gone. He then resigned
his arms to his officer, took off his shako by rubbing his paw over
it, dropped on four legs, bringing his uniform coat into the
absurdest relations with the overarching skies, and ran about the
platform in his white gaiters, waging his tail to an exceeding
great extent. It struck me that there was more waggery than this
in the poodle, and that he knew that the recruits would neither get
through their exercises, nor get rid of their uniforms, as easily
as he; revolving which in my thoughts, and seeking in my pockets
some small money to bestow upon him, I casually directed my eyes to
the face of his superior officer, and in him beheld the Face-Maker!
Though it was not the way to Algeria, but quite the reverse, the
military poodle’s Colonel was the Face-Maker in a dark blouse, with
a small bundle dangling over his shoulder at the end of an
umbrella, and taking a pipe from his breast to smoke as he and the
poodle went their mysterious way.
CHAPTER XXVIII – MEDICINE MEN OF CIVILISATION
My voyages (in paper boats) among savages often yield me matter for
reflection at home. It is curious to trace the savage in the
civilised man, and to detect the hold of some savage customs on
conditions of society rather boastful of being high above them.
I wonder, is the Medicine Man of the North American Indians never
to be got rid of, out of the North American country? He comes into