A letter was surreptitiously thrown
over the wall into the _cour des femmes_.
The _planton_ who suffered all these indignities was a solemn youth with
wise eyes situated very far apart in a mealy expressionless elipse of
face, to the lower end of which clung a piece of down, exactly like a
feather sticking to an egg. The rest of him was fairly normal with the
exception of his hands, which were not mates; the left being considerably
larger, and made of wood.
I was at first somewhat startled by this eccentricity; but soon learned
that with the exception of two or three, who formed the _Surveillant's_
permanent staff and of whom the beefy one was a shining example, all the
_plantons_ were supposed to be unhealthy; they were indeed the disabled
whom _le gouvernement francais_ sent from time to time to La Ferte and
similar institutions for a little outing, and as soon as they had
recovered their health under these salubrious influences they were
shipped back to do their bit for world-safety, democracy, freedom, etc.,
in the trenches. I also learned that, of all the ways of attaining
_cabinot_, by far the simplest was to apply to a _planton_, particularly
to a permanent _planton_, say the beefy one (who was reputed to be
peculiarly touchy on this point) the term _embusque_.
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