The sum of money which his work with pick and shovel, with mason's trowel and carpenter's axe has saved the French Government in all these years must be enormous. And if a bullet, or sunstroke, or typhoid fever, or dysentery carries away a légionnaire, the only expense he is the cause of is the making of a hole in the sand. So cheap! Truly, France's Foreign Legion is a well-paying enterprise! Glorious soldiers and successful workmen are remarkably cheap at five centimes a day.... Every five days the légionnaire gets his wages paid. He holds five copper sous in his hand and must decide whether to buy cigarette tobacco, or cleaning materials, or a bottle of wine. It is only enough for one of these three. The purchase of a box of matches, which are monopolised in Algeria and cost five centimes, is a very grave financial problem. Therefore matches are scarce. Nowhere in the world is one so often asked for a match as in the streets of Sidi-bel-Abbès and in the Legion's barracks. No wonder that the possession of a few silver pieces is something truly great for a légionnaire; no wonder that men like Rassedin rule as kings. Nowhere can the lesson of the value of money be so thoroughly learned as in the Foreign Legion. The money troubles of the Legion are, of course, ridiculously petty troubles. The luckiest man (considered from the Legion's point of view) is he who has kept up some sort of communication with home. The most appalling letters are then written to parents and relations and friends. Usually the poor devil of a letter-writer exaggerates a little, and his descriptions of famine and hardships are most moving. They must be very hard-hearted people indeed who do not acknowledge the receipt of such a letter with a small postal order. Then there is joy in the land of Sidi-bel-Abbès. For a day, or a few days, or even a week, the prodigal son with the postal order lives like a king. He has his boots cleaned for him, and would not dream of making his own bed as long as his money lasts. A comrade does that for him, and in reward is graciously permitted to share a drink. C'est la Légion! To play the "grand seigneur," if it is but for a day, is the average légionnaire's dream of happiness. He thinks it the finest thing in all the world to play at having a servant, if it's but for a day.... And this is the surest sign of the légionnaire's abject poverty. These lucky ones who receive a postal order occasionally represent the crème de la crème, the élite of society in the Foreign Legion. The others have to help themselves. They must "decorate themselves!" This "decorating" is a fine art in the Foreign Legion. It is a mixture of work, cunning, brains, and theft. "Decorate yourself!"