"Strictness, strictness, and always strictness!" he generally said; and at the last word he looked significantly into the face of the person to whom he spoke.

But there was no necessity for this, for the half-score of subordinates who formed the entire force of the office were properly afraid; on catching sight of him afar off they left their work and waited, drawn up in line, until he had passed through the room.

His ordinary converse with his inferiors smacked of sternness, and consisted chiefly of three phrases: "How dare you ?" "Do you know whom you are speaking to ?" "Do you realise who stands before you ?" Otherwise he was a very kind-hearted man, good to his comrades, and ready to oblige; but the rank of general threw him completely off his balance.

On receiving any one of that rank, he became confused, lost his way, as it were, and never knew what to do.

If he chanced to be amongst his equals he was still a very nice kind of man, a very good fellow in many respects, and not stupid; but the very moment that he found himself in the society of people but one rank lower than himself he became silent; and his situation aroused sympathy, the more so as he felt himself that he might have been making an incomparably better use of his time.