"Shut up!" he interrupted; "don't answer me--you are filthy, you dirty beast!" He then began to examine my buttons, my sword, my helmet, my carbine, muttering the whole time, "Swine, swine. You are a _Volontaire_, I think, and you come here late, and as filthy as a pig! You shall have four days' _Salle de Police_." "But--sir----" I ejaculated. "You dare answer me! You shall have four days more. Step back into the ranks!" After we had been paraded and dismissed to the guardroom, I went to the Sergeant of the Guard to explain my case. This man was of low extraction, a peasant, in fact, who had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant merely on account of his undoubted severity. (He had once sent a man before the court-martial for refusing to obey him, and the poor trooper was sentenced to two years' hard labour.) This would seem to constitute a poor qualification for promotion, but, in many French regiments, it is notorious that a Corporal who sends a man before a court-martial is almost certain to be rewarded for his harshness. The Sergeant took very little interest in what I told him, and said it was no business of his, and that I had better speak to the Sergeant-major about it. The following day, when I left the guard, I went to see my Sergeant-major, but, unfortunately for me, he had obtained a two days' extension of leave, and the Sergeant _fourrier_, who was acting in his stead, told me that my punishment had already appeared on the report, and had been forwarded to the Colonel. "Very well then," I said, losing my temper, "I shall go and complain to the Colonel," and I asked him to transmit my application to see that officer. He strongly urged me not to do so, assuring me that I should get no redress, but I was obstinate, and my demand was duly forwarded through the usual channels. At noon the Sergeant _fourrier_ showed me a copy of the Colonel's orders for the day. "You have got it pretty hot," he said, and he showed me the passage of the Colonel's decision referring to my case. To my dismay I read the following: "The punishments inflicted on Trooper Decle by Corporal Armand and by Captain des Tourelles are altered to twenty days' _Salle de Police_." I had, therefore, to sleep in the cells that night, and the Sergeant told me that the answer to my application to see the Colonel would probably appear in the following day's regimental orders. I did not see Sergeant Legros until the following day, for, as I have explained before, troopers who have taken the guard are exempt from duty for four and twenty hours. The next morning, however, when we went to schoolroom, Legros called me. "So you have been at your tricks once more, eh, Decle?" he said. I told him exactly what had occurred, but he only shrugged his shoulders. "Serves you right!" he said. "You _Volontaires_ get into the habit of throwing your money right and left, and if you hadn't begun by tipping the Corporal all this wouldn't have happened."