Horace smiled at the mental picture of the grim, black eagle with the yellow eyes, iron-caged, in the white, cool cleanliness of a hospital ward. "It was Mademoiselle Chandon, too," Croquier continued, "who enabled me to come here to the front. I am a general, no less, my boy, now. I am the General of this army of dogs." "So I see," the lad agreed. "But I didn't know that you knew anything about dogs." "Have you forgotten, my boy," the hunchback answered, "that, when I was a small urchin, I traveled with the circus? I am sure I have told you stories of that time. My master was the animal trainer and many were the tricks that he taught me. One does not forget what one has learned in childhood. "Mademoiselle Chandon, she whose pretty face I was so fortunate as to save with my arm, formerly was rich, as I have said. Before the war, her father had owned magnificent kennels and he was forever lamenting that he could not give his dogs to the army. But they were not trained. "'But I, Mademoiselle,' I said to her, 'behold, I can train dogs. That does not take two hands!' "She clapped her little palms together with delight and ran away to her big house in the town, which was being used as a hospital for the blind. "It was, perhaps, about a week after that, that the old nobleman, her grandfather, came to see me in the hospital. It must needs be her grandfather who came. Her father was an officer in the Cuirassiers. The family had given all their automobiles to the army for staff purposes, so the old nobleman came himself through the streets on foot. [Illustration: _Courtesy of "La Grande Guerre."_ MACHINE-GUN DOG-TEAM IN BELGIUM.] [Illustration: _Courtesy of "Illustrated London News."_ EACH KENNEL INHABITED BY ONE WISE, SILENT DOG. Note that these kennels are drilled out of solid rock as a protection against dropping shells.] "'So, my fine fellow,' he said to me, 'after saving my daughter's life, you want to train my dogs so that they may get crippled, eh?' "'That is as Monsieur le Comte wishes,' I made reply. "'I shall give myself the pleasure of taking you to the country with me when I go, next week,' he said. "Ah, it is the old families who understand true courtesy! "He had nearly a hundred dogs. They were a little too much inbred, perhaps, and therefore over-nervous, but good dogs. Monsieur le Comte gave me the gardener's cottage to live in--the gardener is in the trenches at Verdun--and I spent two happy months teaching the dogs." "That's why my letters never reached you, then," said Horace. "I always wrote to our old address." "I think the landlady died when I was in the hospital," answered Croquier. "She fell ill soon after you left. And, you remember, she was very old." "She was old," the boy agreed. "But why didn't you ever write to me?" "I did, many times. Naturally, I wrote to the Motorcycle Corps of the Fourth Army, but I never received a response."