“Seems to me that is harder on the groom than it is on the horse.”
“Does—it—strike—you—so?” remarked Lieutenant von Schwenkenberg with imperturbable tranquillity.
Now the voice of the Captain was heard again. “Lieutenant Schwarz, will you have the goodness to look at this man of your column.” He had ordered a man in the left wing to turn around, and was standing close before him. “I have told you, no doubt, that it takes a practised eye; look closely at the man, will you? Well? What is it? What do you see that’s wrong about him?”
The young officer inspected him carefully from all sides, but he was bound to confess, with a shrug of his shoulders, that he saw nothing unusual.
The Captain smiled with evident satisfaction. Then he said in a gratified tone, “Ah yes, a practised eye is not a thing to be acquired in a day or two. Just look at the buttons on his jacket.”
“They are not polished as brightly as they might be,” the young officer remarked timidly.
“It’s not that, Lieutenant Schwarz. Ye saints, it’s not that,” replied the Captain, raising his left hand like a mason holding a plumb-line. “Imagine a line drawn from the hook of his collar to the middle seam of his trousers. Do you discover nothing? Nothing whatever? Well, my dear Herr Lieutenant, it would really be expecting too much, altogether too much. All that will come to you in good time, no doubt. I have not served in the army for twenty-five years for nothing. Well now, I’ll tell you. The fourth button counting from the top is about half a line too far to the left. You think it is the tailor’s fault, do you? No, sir; I never make the tailor responsible for such things in my regiment. Saints preserve us! I always test them with a plumb-line. Tell that fellow to unbutton his jacket, and if you don’t find a manœuvre de force at the fourth button then I’m very much mistaken.”
The cannoneer unbuttoned his jacket, and sure enough it was just as the Captain had said. Instead of being sewed on, the fourth button was fastened with a small stick, which set it slightly awry, and brought its owner under the ban of the penal code.
F. W. Hackländer (1816-1877).