"I didn't ask you that," said Hope, severely. "I asked you what you did to get them. Now begin with the Legion of Honor on the left, and go right on until you come to the end, and please don't skip anything. Leave in all the bloodthirsty parts, and please don't be modest."
"Like Othello," suggested Clay.
"Yes," said Hope; "I will be Desdemona."
"Well, Desdemona, it was like this," said Clay, laughing. "I got that medal and that star for serving in the Nile campaign, under Wolseley. After I left Egypt, I went up the coast to Algiers, where I took service under the French in a most disreputable organization known as the Foreign Legion—"
"Don't tell me," exclaimed Hope, in delight, "that you have been a Chasseur d'Afrique! Not like the man in 'Under Two Flags'?"
"No, not at all like that man," said Clay, emphatically. "I was just a plain, common, or garden, sappeur, and I showed the other good-for-nothings how to dig trenches. Well, I contaminated the Foreign Legion for eight months, and then I went to Peru, where I—"
"You're skipping," said Hope. "How did you get the Legion of Honor?"
"Oh, that?" said Clay. "That was a gallery play I made once when we were chasing some Arabs. They took the French flag away from our color-bearer, and I got it back again and waved it frantically around my head until I was quite certain the Colonel had seen me doing it, and then I stopped as soon as I knew that I was sure of promotion."
"Oh, how can you?" cried Hope. "You didn't do anything of the sort. You probably saved the entire regiment."
"Well, perhaps I did," Clay returned. "Though I don't remember it, and nobody mentioned it at the time."