But the really military young gentleman is 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!