Having put on the képi, Mikhail bundled up the uniform, struck an attitude with arms akimbo, and inquired of the other--
"Do I look very awful in this thing, Fedia?"
"Shut up, you little fool," replied Feodor, with a quick frown. "Try and look more like a mujik in maslianitza,[#] and less like a young student at private theatricals. You're a Legionary now."
[#] The week before Lent, or "mad week," when all good mujiks get drunk--or used to do.
When, at length, the recruits had all been fitted into uniforms, and were ready to depart, they were driven forth with the heart-felt curse and comprehensive anathema of the Sergeant-Major--
"Sweep the room clear of this offal, Corporal," quoth he. "And if thou canst make a Légionnaire's little toe out of the whole draft--thou shalt have the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour--I promise it."
"En avant. Marche!" bawled the Corporal, and the "blues" were led away, up flights of stairs, and along echoing corridors to their future home, their new quarters. A Légionnaire, carrying a huge earthenware jug, encountering them outside the door thereof, gave them their first welcome to the Legion.
"Oh thrice-condemned souls, welcome to Hell," he cried genially, and kicking open the door of a huge room, he liberally sprinkled each passing recruit, murmuring as he did so--
"Le diable vous bénisse."
CHAPTER II