"Poor devil! poor devil!"
On the following morning at ten minutes to eight I was at the gate. Indeed, I might easily have been there at six, but as the morning was cold and nothing could be gained by being out and about too soon I remained snugly between the sheets until seven. Punctually at eight the sergeant appeared, and we walked towards one another smiling. I asked him to join me at breakfast. He readily consented, and soon we were seated together in a small restaurant before a table at which we appeased the hunger induced by the sharp morning air with eggs, bread and butter, and coffee. Breakfast over, the sergeant asked, as he said, for the last time, if I were still resolved to join the Foreign Legion. I replied that I was, if I should be accepted.
"Very good; we have half-an-hour, let us walk about until it is time to meet the doctor."
While strolling through the streets he gave me much advice. I was to be respectful, alert, step smartly, and, above all, be observant.
"Watch the others," he said, "and you will very soon learn soldiers' manners."
I promised to do so, and reminded him that I had grown two years older in a single night. He smiled, and said encouragingly:
"Good child! good child!—alas! poor devil!"
I asked him what he meant by alluding to me as a poor devil, and again he abused the Foreign Legion with a vocabulary as insulting as it was extensive. I had never heard or read one-tenth of the words, but it was not hard to guess the meaning. I stopped him by laying my hand upon his arm, and said:
"You forget that I may be one of the Foreign Legion before noon."