Moreover, not one that Mr. Doolittle had ever heard of had been presented with such compensation as had this adventurer. High rank, in the French army, means a struggle to keep up appearances, unless one is wealthy, for the pay is low. A lower rank, when one has been unexpectedly raised to unlimited riches, would be far from insupportable, what with the social advantages attendant upon it. This was what Doolittle, with a kindly impulse of sympathy, was endeavoring tactfully to convey to the military gentleman. But he found him unresponsive. "There's one thing you overlook, Doolittle," De Launay retorted to his well-meant suggestions. The banker, more used to French than English, felt vaguely startled to find him talking in accents as unmistakably American as had been his own many years ago, though there was something unfamiliar about it, too--a drawl that was Southern and yet different. "Money's no use to me, none whatever! I might have enjoyed it--or enjoyed the getting of it--if I could have made it myself--taken it away from some one else. But to have it left to me like this after getting along without it for twenty years and more; to get it through a streak of tinhorn luck; to turn over night from a land-poor Louisiana nester to a reeking oil millionaire--well, it leaves me plumb cold. Anyway, I don't need it. What'll I do with it? I can't hope to spend it all on liquor--that's about all that's left for me to spend it on." "But, my dear general!" Doolittle found his native tongue rusty in his mouth, although the twenty-year expatriate, who had originally been of French descent, had used it with the ease of one who had never dropped it. "My dear general! Even as a lieutenant colonel, the social advantages open to a man of such wealth are boundless--absolutely boundless, sir! And if you are ambitious, think where a man as young as you, endowed with these millions, can rise in the army! You have ability; you have shown that in abundance, and, with ability coupled to wealth, a marshal's baton is none too much to hope for." De Launay chuckled mirthlessly. "Tell it to the ministry of war!" he sneered. "I'll say that much for them: in France, to-day, money doesn't buy commands. Besides, I wouldn't give a lead two-bit piece for all the rank I could come by that way. I fought for my gold braid--and if they've taken it away from me, I'll not buy it back." "There will be other opportunities for distinction," said Mr. Doolittle, rather feebly. "For diplomats and such cattle. Not for soldiers. There was a time when I had ambition--there are those who say I had too much--but I've seen the light. War, to-day, isn't what it used to be. It's too big for any Napoleon. It's too big for any individual. It's too big for any ambition. It's too damn big to be worth while--for a man like me." Mr. Doolittle was puzzled and said so.