"Are all your things there?" he then asked me.
"Yes, sir, I think so."
"You think! You always think. I told you not to think. You have no business to think. That's always the result of too much education. These lazy dogs of Volontaires, they are always thinking. Troopers have no business to think."
Continuing to mutter peevishly, the Lieutenant proceeded to overhaul my things while I stolidly stood at attention, at the foot of my bed.
"Look here, you—what's-your-name, what's the fellow's name?" he grumbled to himself, looking at the placard hanging at the head of my bed, on which my name and regimental number was written.
"Oh—Decle," he read aloud, holding a pair of eyeglasses in his hand—he seldom wore them on his nose. "Lionel," he went on, reading to himself, "too d——d aristocratic to have a Christian name like anybody else. Why is Lionel your Christian name?" he asked me; "will you tell me why you call yourself Lionel?"[34]
"Because my parents christened me so, sir," I replied.
"A fine reason!" he said. "But it doesn't matter. Don't you ever wear your clothes?" he added. "They are all new; they've never been worn!"
"No, sir," I said. "I bought duplicates so as to save those that were served out to me."