"You are en route for America? So am I—we will be comrades," quoth the chevalier.

"With all my heart! Yes, I go to join the army. I shall either find fame or death in the American war."

"Bah! I go to court the jade Fortune. She has jilted me of late. I would feed my wrinkled purse with American dollars, ma foi! that purse is famishing just now."

"You are not pure French?" demanded the captain.

"Mon Dieu! no," rasped monsieur, with a shrug. "I am cosmopolite, yes."

"Where is your birthplace?"

"The Hungary, mon ami. Have been in Vienna, in Geneva, in Turin, and for the rest—everywheres."

"You omit England?"

"Ah, I did not live in England. I saw it, no more."

"Yet you speak English well."