Joseph himself--the Joseph of the coat of many colors, no less--might have devised the uniforms they wore.

With that setting the picture they made there in the courtyard was suggestive of stage scenes in plays of the French Revolution.
They were polite enough, these piebald gentlemen, and they considered our credentials with an air of mildly courteous interest; but they would give us no passes.

There had been an order.

Who had issued it, or why, was not for us to know.

Going away from there, all downcast and disappointed, we met a French cavalryman.