“A few days after their arrival in _la ville lumière_ he ran across a party of college friends. They decided that they must celebrate their reunion by making a night of it. They went to Montmartre. Having come from America, which is very dry, they decided to make Paris very wet. They succeeded so well that day was breaking when our young friend returned to his hotel completely—what do you call it?—soused. His bride of a week was waiting up for him. She was a young woman of strong character and not afraid to speak her mind. “‘If that’s what you think about me,’ the husband said when her reproaches ceased for want of breath, ‘I won’t inflict myself on you any longer.’ “He was very proud and haughty, being still quite drunk, you see. So he marched out of the room and out of the hotel. And she was too proud and hurt to call him back; perhaps she didn’t take his threat very seriously. In the street he accosted the first _agent de police_ he met and demanded the way to the nearest recruiting station. The gendarme, being a patriotic fellow and seeing in our husky young American fine material for the French army, bundled him into a taxi and told the chauffeur to drive him to the _Bureau de Recrutement_ of the _Légion Etrangère_ in the Rue St. Dominique. Our recruiting officers, particularly in Paris, are accustomed to strange applicants, and, as our young friend had no difficulty in passing the physical examination, he was promptly enlisted. “A week later he arrived at the recruit depot of the Legion at Sidi-bel-Abbès, not far from here. He was still wearing his evening-clothes, though the shirt-front that had once been so immaculate was rumpled and grimy, and his clothes appeared to have been slept in, as they had. In short, he looked considerably the worse for wear. But a bath, a shave, a close hair-cut, a baggy white uniform with a broad blue sash ... and, behold, he was a full-fledged _légionnaire_! “That was nearly a year ago,” continued the colonel. “Our gay young romantic still has a trifle over four years to serve. Regularly, the first of every month, he receives a letter from his wife, assuring him that she will be waiting for him when his term of service is completed, and inclosing a small sum for wine, tobacco, and similar luxuries. It is a hard life in the Legion, particularly for a man who has been spoiled by luxury, but his officers tell me that he is standing up well under it—‘making good,’ as you say in the States. When we are through with him I think it is safe to say that he will be a better man, a better citizen, and a better husband.”