He took his place in the line, and when at length his turn was announced, followed the rabble shamefacedly. The _chasseurs_ in the mess-room were making merry after dinner with pipes and cards, and one of these, giving Pisgah a piece of bread and a tin basin of strong soup, slapped him smartly upon the shoulder, and cried: "My fine fellow! you have the stuff in you for a soldier." "I am just getting a soldier's stuff into me," responded Pisgah, antithetically. "Why do you go abroad, hungry, ill-dressed, and houseless, when you can wear the livery of France?" Pisgah thought the soldier a very presuming person. "I am a foreigner," he said, "a--a--a French Canadian (we speak _patois_ there). My troubles are temporary merely. A day or two may make me rich." "Yet for that day or two," continued the _chasseur_, "you will have the humiliation of begging your bread. What signifies seven years of honorable service to three days of mendicancy and distress? We are well cared for by the nation; we are respected over the world. It is a mean thing to be a soldier in other lands; here we are the gentlemen of France." Pisgah had never looked upon it in that light, and said so. "Your poverty may have unmanned you," repeated the other; "to recover your own esteem do a manly act! We have all feared death as citizens; but take cold steel in your hand, and you can look into your grave without a qualm. I say to you," spoke the _chasseur_, clearly and eloquently, "be one of us. Decide now, before a doubt mars your better resolve! You are a young man, though the soulless career of a citizen has anticipated the whitening of your hairs. Plant your foot; throw back your shoulders; say 'yes!'" "I do!" cried Pisgah, with something of the other's enthusiasm; "I was born a gentleman, I will die a gentleman, or a soldier." They put Mr. Pisgah among the conscripts recently levied, and he went about town with a fictitious number in his hat, joining in their bacchanal choruses. The next day he appeared in white duck jacket and pantaloons, looking like an overgrown baker's boy, with a chapeau like a flat, burnt loaf. He was then put through the manual, which seemed to indicate all possible motions save that of liquoring up, and when he was so fatigued that he had not the energy even to fall down, he was clasped in the arms of Madame Francine, who had traced him to the barracks, but was too late to avert his destiny. "Oh! _mon amant!_" she cried, falling upon his neck. "Why did you go and do it? You knew that I did not mean to see you starve." "You have consigned me to a soldier's grave, woman!" answered Pisgah, in the deepest tragedy tone. "Do not say so, my _bonbon_!" pleaded the good lady, covering him with kisses. "I would have worn my hands to the bone to save you from this dreadful life. Suppose you should be sent to Algiers or Mexico, or some other heathen country, and die there." It was Pisgah's turn to be touched.