An hour of this drill convinced me that it was not such an easy thing to stand at ease as people imagined, and that a man taken from the plough had a very difficult task before him to learn his drill.
Upon being dismissed from my drill, I was going to walk about the parade a little, but I soon heard my name shouted by Snipson from the room I was appointed to. Upon entering the room Snipson said, “You’re a cool kind of a fellow, swaggering about on parade! You just come here instantly after you’re dismissed your drill, every day! Now get my basin filled with water?”
“Where is your basin?” I inquired.
“Where is my basin? Why, go and find it, and look sharp, or I will give you a licking?”
I glanced all round the room, but saw no sign of a basin, so concluded it must be outside. I opened the door, and saw opposite to me four large tin basins. Rejoicing in my luck in finding the basins, I stooped down and selected one, which I was about to take into my room, when I heard a shout close beside me, and saw Timpson in a great rage glaring at me. “You’re the coolest young ruffian I ever saw!” said Timpson. “What do you mean by taking my basin?” No sooner had he uttered these words than he lifted his leg and gave me a kick, in much the same manner as though I had been a football.
“Drop that basin?” shouted Timpson; “and if I ever catch you touching it again I’ll half kill you!”
“What! in trouble again?” said Snipson, who had now come to the door. “Serve you right! what a donkey you are! Don’t you see our basins are round here?”
I now saw that there were three basins on the left-hand side of the door of our room, which I had overlooked when I first went out. I lifted one of these, and, taking it into the room, placed it on the table—the only place that it seemed possible to wash on.
“Fat the basin in the proper place!” said Snipson. “You’re the greatest idiot I ever saw.”
I looked round, and, seeing only a stool, was about to put the basin there, but was warned I was wrong by the whiz of a clothes-brush close beside my head.