In the afternoon I availed myself of the permission which had been granted me of using the dispensary, and I was sitting there sketching when Surgeon-major Lesage stepped into the room. He was a brisk and restless little man, very stern in appearance, but with the kindest of hearts. "What the deuce are you doing there?" he asked, as I rose to salute him and stood at attention. I explained matters to him. "Yes," he said, "I know; Dr. Chatelain has spoken to me about you, but you're a bit of a _pricotteur_,[37] aren't you?" "No, sir," I replied. "Never mind, never mind," he said in his brusque way. "When you are ill, I'll look after you, but don't come to me when you aren't--I don't like it." He hurried out of the room, and went to visit the troopers in the sick ward. When I resumed work on the Tuesday it had been snowing hard during the night, and the cold was such that our fingers soon became benumbed through contact with our carbines. I have omitted to mention that in the cavalry white doeskin gloves are always worn at drill; and we were even allowed during the winter months to wear white woollen gloves. In the infantry the men drill without gloves, and only wear them on parade, or when they go out of barracks, their gloves being of white cotton.[38] Before drilling us Sergeant Legros carefully examined our carbines, and gave _Salle de Police_ "_à l'oeil_" to three of us. As I have already explained, _à l'oeil_ means that the punishment is not reported to the officers, and therefore is not recorded. In my time this led to monstrous abuse, as neither the Captains nor the Colonel were aware of the number of men who were daily punished. It was so cold that we felt quite delighted when we were commanded to start at _pas gymnastique_ (a quick run), the Sergeant and the Corporal running with us for a couple of hundred yards, when they fell out. We soon, however, began to feel exhausted, but Legros noticing this called out to us: "You d---- lazy brutes, keep your distances, or I'll leave you on the run for half an hour longer." First one, then another, fell out, utterly unable to go on, each one of them being told that he would sleep in the _Salle de Police_ that night; then came my turn, with the same result, but little did I care for the punishment, as I had to sleep in the den in any case. Altogether six of us were punished after we had been kept on the run for more than a quarter of an hour! We were kept drilling on foot for half an hour longer, and during that time our Sergeant took a delight in making us "Shoulder arms," "Slope arms," "Present arms," and leaving us in the same position for three or four minutes at a time, while if a single one of us wavered in the least he never failed to make us repeat the movement. Day after day the same thing occurred, until the two hours of foot drill became a daily terror to us.