* * * * * On the 14th of April, 1871, my regiment received the order to attack the Neuilly bridge, a formidable position held by the Communists. What the Prussians had not done some compatriot of mine succeeded in doing. I fell severely wounded. After my spending five months in the Versailles military hospital, and three more at home in convalescence, the army surgeons declared that I should no longer be able to use my right arm for military purposes, and I was granted a lieutenant's pension, which would have been just sufficient to keep me in segars if I had been a smoker. But of this I do not complain. Poor France! she had enough to pay! * * * * * At the end of the year of grace, 1871, my position was very much like that of my beloved country: all seemed lost, _fors l'honneur_. Through my friends, however, I was soon offered a choice between two "social positions." The first was a colonel's commission in the Egyptian army (it seemed that the state of my right arm was no objection). I was to draw a very good salary. My friends in Cairo, however, warned me that salaries were not always paid very regularly, but sometimes allowed to run on till cash came into the Treasury. It was during the good times of Ismail Pacha. This made me a little suspicious that my salary might run on so fast that I should not be able to catch it. The other post offered me was that of London correspondent to an important Parisian newspaper. * * * * * I had had enough of military "glory" by this time. Yet the prospect of an adventurous life is always more or less fascinating at twenty-three years of age. Being the only child of a good widowed mother, I thought I would take her valuable advice on the subject. I am fortunate in having a mother full of common sense. With her French provincial ideas, she was rather startled to hear that a disabled lieutenant could all at once become an active colonel. She thought that somehow the promotion was too rapid. Alas! she, too, had had enough of military "glory." Her advice was to be followed, for it was formulated thus: "You speak English pretty well; we have a good many friends in England; accept the humbler offer, and go to England to earn an honest living." This is how I was not with Arabi Pacha on the wrong side at Tel-el-Kebir, and how it became my lot to make one day the acquaintance of the British school-boy of whom I shall have more to say by-and-by. * * * * * On the 8th of July, 1872, I took the London train at the _Gare du Nord_, Paris. Many relations and friends came to the station to see me off. Some had been in England, some had read books on England, but all seemed to know a great deal about it. Advice, cautions, suggestions, were poured into my ears. "Be sure you go and see Madame Tussaud's to-morrow," said one.