Good reputations, they say, take longest to establish. Only legends come to life spontaneously. His kindliness and honesty must have belonged to the legends, because in less than a week there was not a single man in the battalion who did not speak of him with respect and admiration. “He’s a chic type,” they said. “He’s a man.” And the men, who love to see their commander among them, living their life, sharing their labors and fatigue, experiencing the same trials, knew at once that he did not belong to that distant and unknown hierarchy which transmits its orders from an ivory throne. From the day he took over his command, he wanted to see everything for himself and all the positions in the sector. With his knotty baton in his hand, he went through all the communication trenches, the first-line trenches, into the saps, verified the riflemen’s posts, and, it was said, spent nights in the picket posts. * * * * * When the battalion relieved the 38th at Méharicourt, the commandant’s post which was assigned to the major was in an immense house in the middle of a park which was not much destroyed. Since the day before, however, the artillery had established an observation tower in a poplar and had foreseen that it would hardly be prudent to occupy the house. It would be shelled if the battery were spotted. The commander learned this, and without saying a word established his things all the same in the salon which he used for an office and bedroom. The first night and the next morning passed without incident—not a single shot from the Boche lines. Aeroplanes flew over at daybreak. He had invited to lunch, as was his custom, when we were in cantonment, the doctor, his captain adjutant-major, and the engineer officer in charge of the sector. My relations with him dated back before the war, so I was with him often, and he frequently kept me at the table with his guests. I was there that day. We had scarcely sat down when they began to talk of Portugal’s entrance into the war. The engineer was the manager of a political paper and his remarks were so keen that we were all interested, and even the servants stopped to listen. Just then a shell, the first in two days, burst somewhere in the neighborhood. The glasses rattled on the table; we could hear things falling, and people running by in the street. The conversation stopped. The major, who had been as silent as usual during the meal, spoke up in his quiet voice: “They say that their artillery is excellent ... it comes from Creusit”—and he engaged the journalist in a historical discussion about the armament and strength of Portugal, which showed a deep knowledge of the country, in spite of its unexpected and recent entrance into the ranks of the Allies.