be a sort of compliment to your host. I
got in the habit abroad--"

"I didn't ask you that," said Hope, severely. "I asked you what you
did to get them. Now begin with the Legion of Honor on the left, and
go right on until you come to the end, and please don't skip anything.
Leave in all the bloodthirsty parts, and please don't be modest."

"Like Othello," suggested Clay.

"Yes," said Hope; "I will be Desdemona."

"Well, Desdemona, it was like this," said Clay, laughing. "I got that
medal and that star for serving in the Nile campaign, under Wolseley.
After I left Egypt, I went up the coast to Algiers, where I took
service under the French in a most disreputable organization known as
the Foreign Legion--"

"Don't tell me," exclaimed Hope, in delight, "that you have been a
Chasseur d'Afrique! Not like the man in 'Under Two Flags'?"

"No, not at all like that man," said Clay, emphatically. "I was just a
plain, common, or garden, sappeur, and I showed the other
good-for-nothings how to dig trenches. Well, I contaminated the
Foreign Legion for eight months, and then I went to Peru, where I--"

"You're skipping," said Hope. "How did you get the Legion of Honor?"

"Oh, that?" said Clay. "That was a gallery play I made once when we
were chasing some Arabs. They took the French flag away from our
color-bearer, and I got it back again and waved it frantically around
my head until I was quite certain the Colonel had seen me doing it, and
then I stopped as soon as I knew that I was sure of promotion."

"Oh, how can you?" cried Hope. "You didn't do anything of the sort.
You probably saved the entire regiment."

"Well, perhaps I did," Clay returned. "Though I don't remember it, and
nobody mentioned it at the time."

"Go on about the others," said Hope. "And do try to be truthful."

"Well, I got this one from Spain, because I was President of an
International Congress of Engineers at Madrid. That was the ostensible
reason, but the real reason was because I taught the Spanish
Commissioners to play poker instead of baccarat. The German Emperor
gave me this for designing a fort, and the Sultan of Zanzibar gave me
this, and no one but the Sultan knows why, and he won't tell. I
suppose he's ashamed. He gives them away instead of cigars. He was
out of cigars the day I called."

"What a lot of places you have seen," sighed Hope. "I have been in
Cairo and Algiers, too, but I always had to walk about with a