"Excuse me," said my interlocutor, "but you are not a Frenchman, are you?"
"No; I am an Englishman."
Then desirous, no doubt, of excusing his seeming indiscretion, he continued:
"I asked you that question because I am myself a stranger—a Swiss—and from your appearance I thought you might be here with a similar intention to my own: that of enlisting in the Foreign Legion. Am I right?"
"Yes," I answered, having no reason to conceal the object of my presence there, and, besides, the looks of the man rather pleased me. He was evidently a frank-speaking, good-tempered fellow, and his clean-shaven face and neat exterior indicated a certain respectability. I took him for an actor or a gentleman's valet. Knowing that I should be likely to meet and mix with all sorts and conditions of men in the road I had chosen, on taking my decision I had determined to accept things as they were without complaint, so long as the life would bring me new experiences which I could not hope to encounter in the ordinary stay-at-home, humdrum existence.
"Well," he continued, "it appears that we have both chosen the same route. I hope we shall be in the same regiment."
"The same regiment!" I exclaimed in surprise, "I thought there was only one Legion."
"Formerly it was so," he replied; "but that fellow over there—a German, who is going to enlist for a second time—tells me that about five years ago the old Legion was formed into two corps, which go by the name of the 1st and 2nd Régiments Étrangers."
I looked in the direction he indicated, and saw a tall man of about thirty, whose stalwart form and straight shoulders betokened the soldier. He was reading one of the bills on the walls. This information interested me immensely, and I was just thinking of how I could best approach this individual with the view of obtaining fresh details, when the door of the Commandant's office opened suddenly and a non-commissioned officer appeared, and, to my consternation, shouted out my name. Instinctively I rose and answered "Present," just as if I were answering to a call-over at school, all the other occupants of the room eyeing me curiously as I did so.