His very talk, which used to be so homely, began now to be tinselled with big swelling words of vanity imported from the army.

I need hardly say these bombastical phrases did not elevate his general dialect: they lay fearfully distinct upon the surface, "like lumps of marl upon a barren soil, encumbering the ground they could not fertilize." Jacintha took leave to remind him of an incident connected with warfare--wounds.
"Do you remember how you were down upon your luck when you did but cut your foot?
Why, that is nothing in the army.

They never go out to fight but some come back with arms off, and some with legs off and some with heads; and the rest don't come back at all: and how would you like that ?" This intrusion of statistics into warfare at first cooled Dard's impatience for the field.

But presently the fighting half of his heart received an ally in one Sergeant La Croix (not a bad name for a military aspirant).

This sergeant was at the village waiting to march with the new recruits to the Rhine.