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OFFICER AND SOLDIER-SERVANT
"Undress!" said the doctor to Nikita, who was standing motionless, his eyes fixed on space. Nikita gave a start, and hurriedly commenced to unfasten his clothes.
"A bit faster, friend!" cried the doctor impatiently ; "you see what a lot of you there are here."
He pointed to the crowd in the room.
"Turn round! . . . Lost your senses ?" added by way of assistance the N. C.O. who was taking the measurements.
Nikita made even more haste, threw off his shirt and trousers, and stood in a state of nature. That there is nothing more beautiful than the human form has often been said by someone, somewhen, and somewhere, but if he who first made this pronouncement had lived in the seventies, and had seen the naked Nikita, he would certainly have retracted his words.
Before the Military Service Commission there stood a little man with a disproportionately large stomach, a legacy from generations of ancestors who had never tasted pure bread — and long withered arms furnished with huge black knotted fists. His long awkward body was supporte d by very short bandy legs, and the whole figure was crowned by a head . . . what a head it was! The facial bones had been developed at the expense of the skull. His forehead was low and narrow, and his eyes, without brows or lashes, were little more than slits.
On an enormous flat face forlornly sat a little round nose
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