They were brought in by Flopson and Millers, much as though those two non-commissioned officers had been recruiting somewhere for children and had enlisted these, while Mrs. Pocket looked at the young Nobles that ought to have been as if she rather thought she had had the pleasure of inspecting them before, but didn’t quite know what to make of them.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 23. Using irony and satire, Dickens draws a humorous picture of the dysfunctional Pocket home where the servants are in control, and Mrs. Pocket is not mistress of her house. Deluded and detached, her world is a make-believe one, in which her children should have been members of the nobility. The military simile of the nursemaids as “non-commissioned officers” enlisting the youngsters adds to the image of family disconnect and servants running the show.