The water-wagon was dislocated from its proper position. The cabinet and
urinal were misused. The gate was continually admitting and emitting
persons who said they were thirsty, and must get a drink at a tub of
water which stood around the corner. A letter was surreptitiously thrown
over the wall into the _cour des femmes_.

The _planton_ who suffered all these indignities was a solemn youth with
wise eyes situated very far apart in a mealy expressionless elipse of
face, to the lower end of which clung a piece of down, exactly like a
feather sticking to an egg. The rest of him was fairly normal with the
exception of his hands, which were not mates; the left being considerably
larger, and made of wood.

I was at first somewhat startled by this eccentricity; but soon learned
that with the exception of two or three, who formed the _Surveillant's_
permanent staff and of whom the beefy one was a shining example, all the
_plantons_ were supposed to be unhealthy; they were indeed the disabled
whom _le gouvernement francais_ sent from time to time to La Ferte and
similar institutions for a little outing, and as soon as they had
recovered their health under these salubrious influences they were
shipped back to do their bit for world-safety, democracy, freedom, etc.,
in the trenches. I also learned that, of all the ways of attaining
_cabinot_, by far the simplest was to apply to a _planton_, particularly
to a permanent _planton_, say the beefy one (who was reputed to be
peculiarly touchy on this point) the term _embusque_. This method never
failed. To its efficacy many of the men and more of the girls (by whom
the _plantons_, owing to their habit of taking advantage of the weaker
sex at every opportunity, were even more despised) attested by not
infrequent spasms of consumptive coughing, which could be plainly heard
from the further end of one _cour_ to the other.