"I'll explain, my dear uncle, for I'm sure you'll take a great fancy to my friend Gerald. There are not many of his stamp to be found nowadays, I assure you. We were classmates at the college of Louis le Grand. I left for Africa. Six months afterward my friend Gerald was in the ranks beside me." "A private?" "Yes." "But why didn't he enter the army by way of St. Cyr? It was merely a whim or caprice on his part, I suppose, this enlisting?" "No, uncle; on the contrary, Gerald's conduct in the matter has been the result of profound reflection. He is a grand seigneur by birth, being, as I told you just now, the Duc de Senneterre." "That is a name that has figured prominently in the history of France," remarked the old sailor. "Yes, the house of Senneterre is as ancient as it is illustrious, uncle, but Gerald's family has lost the greater part of the immense fortune it once possessed. There remains now, I think, an income of barely forty thousand francs a year. That is a good deal of money for the generality of people, but not for persons of noble birth; besides, Gerald has two sisters who must be provided with dowries." "But tell me how and why your young duke happened to join the army as a private?" "In the first place, my friend Gerald is very original in his ideas, and has all kinds of odd notions about life. When he found himself within the conscription age, on leaving college, his father--he had a father then--remarked one day, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that arrangements must be made to secure a substitute if any such contingency should arise, and do you know what this peculiar friend of mine replied?" "Tell me." "'Father,' said Gerald, 'this is a duty that every right-minded man owes to his country. It is an obligation of race, particularly when a war is actually going on, and I consider it an ignoble act to endeavour to escape the dangers of war by hiring some poor devil to leave his farm or work-bench and go and run the risk of being killed in your stead. To do this is to confess oneself a coward, and, as I am not desirous of such a reputation, I shall serve, if my name is drawn.'" "Zounds! I'm in love with your young duke, already!" exclaimed the veteran. "He stated the case pretty correctly, didn't he?" replied Olivier, with friendly complacency. "Though this resolution seemed very strange to his father, that gentleman had too keen a sense of honour to oppose it. Gerald's name was drawn, and that is the way he happened to be a private in the African Chasseurs, currying his horse, doing his share of the stable and kitchen work like the rest of us, and even going to the guard-house without a word of complaint if he absented himself without permission. In short, there wasn't a better soldier in the regiment." "Nor a braver, too, I'll be bound," said the veteran, more and more interested.