It was the ill-fated _General Chanzy_, and the last of the cargo was going on board to the tune of the winch pawls and the shouting of the red-fezzed negro stevedores. The quay presented a brilliant spectacle beneath the intense blue of the morning sky; a company of Spahis bound for Senegal were lining up by the troopship that was to take them, the crying of the Arab children at play answered the crying of the gulls fishing in the harbour, and here came the first of the passengers for the Marseilles boat, a stout, bearded Frenchman, who might have been Tartarin of Tarascon himself, in tweeds, wearing a sun helmet and followed by two negro porters carrying his luggage. After him came a French family, two American ladies in blue veils and a tall Englishman with side whiskers, a rare bird to find nowadays, and recalling to mind the "typical" Englishman who used to figure in the old Palais Royal farces. Then came some Germans, and lastly what Jacques was waiting for. Madame Seraskier, Mademoiselle Seraskier and their maid. The women were all veiled and the maid was carrying a dressing-bag. There was no sign of Schneider. Jacques was not looking for him. He drew close to the gangway, and as Madame Seraskier placed her hand upon the rail, he advanced, raised his _képi_ and said: "I see, madame, that you have changed your maid." The stout Frenchman, who had taken his place on the boat deck of the _General Chanzy_, and who was in the act of lighting a cigar, was treated to a spectacle. He saw the légionnaire corporal raise his hat to an old lady, the old lady fall in a faint, and the old lady's maid drop the dressing-bag she was carrying, pick up her skirts and run, pursued by the légionnaire. He saw her captured and handcuffed, and then he saw the old lady and her daughter led off by the police. Then the boat started, carrying him off, to wonder for ever what could have been the meaning of it all and how it all ended. It ended in a court-martial at Oran, where Schneider was condemned to a year of the penal battalion, not for having run away, but for having lost his uniform, and Jacques, who knew where that uniform was, said nothing. Wicked of him, perhaps, but with that I have nothing to do. I am simply telling this story to cast a sidelight on the character of Jacques. As for the character of Schneider, the regimental surgeon, a hard-bitten French colonial officer with a terrible eye for the truth of things, summed it up for me: