s waiting all this time, and at
the very moment that an apology rises to our lips, he emerges from the
barrack gate (he is quartered in a garrison town), and takes the way
towards the high street. He wears his undress uniform, which somewhat
mars the glory of his outward man; but still how great, how grand, he is!
What a happy mixture of ease and ferocity in his gait and carriage, and
how lightly he carries that dreadful sword under his arm, making no more
ado about it than if it were a silk umbrella! The lion is sleeping: only
think if an enemy were in sight, how soon he'd whip it out of the
scabbard, and what a terrible fellow he would be!

But he walks on, thinking of nothing less than blood and slaughter; and
now he comes in sight of three other military young gentlemen,
arm-in-arm, who are bearing down towards him, clanking their iron heels
on the pavement, and clashing their swords with a noise, which should
cause all peaceful men to quail at heart. They stop to talk. See how
the flaxen-haired young gentleman with the weak legs--he who has his
pocket-handkerchief thrust into the breast of his coat-glares upon the
fainthearted civilians who linger to look upon his glory; how the next
young gentleman elevates his head in the air, and majestically places his
arms a-kimbo, while the third stands with his legs very wide apart, and
clasps his hands behind him. Well may we inquire--not in familiar jest,
but in respectful earnest--if you call that nothing. Oh! if some
encroaching foreign power--the Emperor of Russia, for instance, or any of
those deep fellows, could only see those military young gentlemen as they
move on together towards the billiard-room over the way, wouldn't he
tremble a little!

And then, at the Theatre at night, when the performances are by command
of Colonel Fitz-Sordust and the officers of the garrison--what a splendid
sight it is! How sternly the defenders of their country look round the
house as if in mute assurance to the audience, that they may make
themselves comfortable regarding any foreign invasion, for they (the
military young gentlemen) are keeping a sharp look-out, and are ready for
anything. And what a contrast between them, and that stage-box full of
grey-headed officers with tokens of many battles about them, who have
nothing at all in common with the military young gentlemen, and who--but
for an old-fashioned kind of manly dignity in their looks and
bearing--might be common