had run dry through lack of
encouragement, the door was thrown open, and in walked the doctor, a
big, jovial man, accompanied by the middle-aged lieutenant who had shown
interest in Max, and a weary-faced clerk plunged in gloom by a bad cold
in the head. As they entered, the two officers looked at Max, and
glanced quickly at each other. They had evidently been speaking of him.
But his examination was left till the last. The chauffeur of
"twenty-seven" and the waiter of "eighteen" were passed as physically
fit--_bon pour le service_: and then came the turn of the third recruit,
whose pale blue silk underclothing brought a slight twinkle to the eye
of the jolly _medecin major_. Max wished that it had occurred to him to
buy something cheaper and less noticeable. But it was too late to think
of that now. At all events, he was grateful for the tact and
consideration which had given him the last turn.

"Magnifique!" exclaimed the doctor, when he had pinched and pounded Max,
sounded heart and lungs, and squeezed his biceps. "Here we have an
athlete." And he exchanged another glance with the lieutenant.

The clerk scribbled industriously and sadly in his book, as Max dressed
himself again; and the ordeal was over. When the third recruit of the
day had been given a paper, first to read, and then to sign with his new
name, his contract for five years to serve the Republic of France was
made and completed. Maxime St. George was a soldier of the Legion.

He, with the ex-chauffeur and the ex-waiter, was marched by a corporal
through a small side gate into the barrack square; and the guard,
sitting on a bench by the guardhouse, honoured the newcomers with a
stare. The chauffeur and the waiter got no more than a passing glance,
but all eyes, especially those of the sergeant of the guard, focussed on
Max. Apparently it was not every day that the little gate beside the
great gate opened for a gentleman recruit. Max realized again that he
was conspicuous, and resigned himself to the inevitable. This was the
last time he need suffer. In a few minutes the uniform of the Legion
would make him a unit among other units, and there would be nothing to
single him out from the rest. He would no longer have even a name that
mattered. In losing his individuality he would become a number. But for
a moment he felt like a new arrival in a Zoo: an animal of some rare
species which drew the interest of spectators away from luckier beasts
of commoner