"Name, Nordhoff, Charles Bernard--born at London, 1887--American citizen--unmarried--no children--desires to enlist in Foreign Legion for duration of war--to be detached to the navigating personnel of the Aviation," read the sergeant, monotonously. In two minutes I had been weighed, measured, stethoscoped, ears and eyes tested, and passed. The colonel looked at me coldly and turned to the captain. "Not so bad, this one, hein? He has not the head of a beast." I bowed with all the dignity a naked man can muster, and said respectfully, "Merci, mon colonel." "Ah, you speak French," he rejoined with a smile; "good luck, then, my American." II THE FLEDGLING Here at Avord there are about seventy-five Americans of every imaginable sort--sailors, prize-fighters, men of the Foreign Legion, and a good scattering of University men. As good a fellow as any is H----, formerly a chauffeur in San Francisco. He is pleasant, jolly, and hard-working, with an absurdly amiable weakness for "crap-shooting," in which he indulges at all times, seconded by an American darky who is a pilot here--and a good one. I can hear them as I write, snapping their fingers as the dice roll: "Come on 'leben--little seben, be good to me! Fifty days--little Phoebe--fever in the South! Read 'em and weep! Ten francs--let 'er ride. I'll fade you!" The crap-shooting circle is always either stuffed with banknotes or reduced to a few sous--which latter predicament is a bit serious here, where we have to pay eight to ten francs a day to get sufficient nourishing food. We sleep in barracks, about twenty to the room, on cots with straw mattresses. All days are pretty much alike. At 3 A.M. a funny little Annamite Chinaman, with betel-blackened teeth, comes softly in and shakes you by the shoulder in an absurdly deprecating way. You reach for your tin cup, and he pours out a quarter-litre of fearful but hot liquid, somewhat resembling coffee. Then a cigarette in bed, amid drowsy yawns and curses; a pulling on of breeches, golf-stockings, and leather coats; a picking up of helmets, and a sleepy march to the bureau, under the wind-gauges, barometers, and the great red balls that show the passing side (right or left) for the day. "Rassemblement! Mettez-vous sur quatre!" barks the adjutant, and off we go to the field. There till nine, or till the wind becomes too strong--each man taking his sortie of ten minutes as his name is called. Back about ten; then a lecture till eleven, a discussion after that, and the first meal of the day. Sleep afterwards till three or three-thirty; then a bath, a shave, brush teeth, and clean up in general. At five, assembly again, the same march, the same lessons till nine; then a meal, a smoke, and to bed at eleven.