The following text is from Charles Chesnutt's 1905 novel The Colonel's Dream. Mr. French and Mr. Kirby work together.

Mr. French, the senior partner, who sat opposite Kirby, was an older man—a safe guess would have placed him somewhere in the debatable ground between forty and fifty; of a good height, as could be seen even from the seated figure, the upper part of which was held erect with the unconscious ease which one associates with military training.