staff-end

Updated: July 11, 2026

Here his conduct would be discourteous if there were not a reason for it. He is reserved, unsympathetic, keeps the great man at the staff-end, will not even come out to receive him as common courtesy might have suggested; sends him a curt message of direction, with not a word more than was necessary. And then, naturally enough, the hot soldier begins to explode.

Alexander Maclaren - Expositions of Holy Scripture: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and First Book of Samuel,: Second Samuel, First Kings, and Second Kings chapters I to VII