The Inspector-General had come to camp to inspect the regiment, and he was on the ground.
Forty years of service in the regular army, with promotion averaging one grade every ten years, making him an old man and a grandfather before he was a Lieutenant-Colonel, had so surcharged Col.

Murbank's nature with bitterness as to make even the very air in his vicinity seem roughly astringent.

The wicked young Lieutenants who served with him on the Plains used to say that his bark was worse than his bite, because no reasonable bite could ever be so bad as his bark.

They even suggested calling him "Peruvian Bark," because a visit to his quarters was worse than a strong does of quinia.
"Yeth, that'th good," said the lisping wit of the crowd.

"Evely bite ith a bit, ain't it?
And the wortht mutht be a bitter, ath he ith." The Colonel believed tha the whole duty of man consisted in loving the army regulations, and in keeping their commandments.