To go through this routine, required—as it received in some regiments—a few days’ training; but in the Hundredth there was none at all. Every officer in that distinguished corps was supposed to be “a Heaven-born genius,” and acquired his military education as pigeons pick up peas. The Hon. Ensign Spoonbill looked at his men after a fashion; could swear at them if they were excessively dirty, and perhaps awe them into silence by a portentous scowl, or an exaggerated loudness of voice; but with regard to the real purpose of inspection, he knew as little, and cared as much, as the valet who aired his noble father’s morning newspaper. His eye wandered over the men’s kits as they were exposed to his view; but to his mind they only conveyed the idea of a kaleidoscopic rag-fair, not that of an assortment of necessaries for the comfort and well-being of the soldier. He saw large masses of beef, exhibited in a raw state by the quartermaster, as the daily allowance for the men; but if any one had asked him if the meat was good, and of proper weight, how could he have answered, whose head was turned away in disgust, with his face buried in a scented cambric handkerchief, and his delicate nature loathing the whole scene? In the same spirit he saw the men’s breakfasts and dinners served; fortifying his opinion, at the first, that coffee could only be made in France, and wondering, at the second, what sort of _potage_ it could be that contrived to smell so disagreeably. These things might be special affectations in the Hon. Ensign, and depended, probably, on his own peculiar organisation; but if the rest of the officers of the Hundredth did not manifest as intense a dislike to this part of their duties, they were members of much too “crack” a regiment to give themselves any trouble about the matter. The drums beat, the messes were served, there was a hasty gallop through the barrack-rooms, scarcely looking right or left, and the orderly officer was only too happy to make his escape without being stopped by any impertinent complaint.