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Updated: April 30, 2025
"There's one thing I should like to know before I go," said I, turning suddenly on the doctor's mat, "and that is whether Mr. Maturin is really ill or not!" I meant, of course, at the present moment, but Dr. Theobald braced himself like a recruit at the drill-sergeant's voice. "Of course he is," he snapped "so ill as to need a nurse who can nurse, by way of a change."
They were, perhaps, the excuse for my conduct, if I had any. Schwartz burst on us with his drill-sergeant's shout for the princess. Standing grey in big rain-drops he was an object of curiosity to us both. He came to take her orders. 'The thunder, he announced, raising a telegraphic arm, 'rolls. It rains. We have a storm. Command me, princess! your highness!
It was amusing to witness the poor fellow's pompous precision of movement as he stood behind his master's chair or helped the guest to his humble meal; the rigidity of his inactive moments, or the ridiculous jerkiness with which he passed a platter as 'twere to the time of a drill-sergeant's baton.
They were, perhaps, the excuse for my conduct, if I had any. Schwartz burst on us with his drill-sergeant's shout for the princess. Standing grey in big rain-drops he was an object of curiosity to us both. He came to take her orders. 'The thunder, he announced, raising a telegraphic arm, 'rolls. It rains. We have a storm. Command me, princess! your highness!
And in the midst of these long-drawn superlatives and glittering contrasts come in short martial phrases, as brief and sharp as a drill-sergeant's word of command. "Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting" "The avenues were lined with grenadiers" "The streets were kept clear by cavalry." No man can forget these short, hard decisive sentences.
Discipline and ever better discipline; enforcement of the rule in all points, improvement of the rule itself where possible, were the great Drill-sergeant's continual care. Daily had some loop fallen, which might have gone ravelling far enough; but daily was he there to pick it up again, and keep the web unrent and solidly progressive.
He no longer looked like the same boy. The alteration in his appearance was almost as striking as that which takes place in a country clown caught by a recruiting sergeant, half drunk at a fair, as he rolls on, looking every moment as if he was going to topple over, from public-house to public-house, and when he has been under the drill-sergeant's hands for a couple of years, and is turned into the trim, active, intelligent soldier.
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