nt. "To spend a week or two weeks here in the school,
all alone! No--I tell you what! I've an idea!"

"What is it?" asked Frank, a little amused at the horror with which his
friend heard of the notion of staying in school after the holidays had
begun.

"Why, come home with me until your uncle comes!" said Harry. "That's
what you must do. I live not so far away--not so very far. At Amiens.
You have heard of it? Oh, we will have fine times, you and I. I am to
join the Boy Scouts Francais these holidays!"

He called it Boy Scoots, and Frank roared. The word scout had been
retained, without translation, when the French adopted the Boy Scout
movement from England, just as words like rosbif, football, and le sport
had been adopted into the language. But all these words, or nearly all,
have been given a French pronunciation, which give them a strange sound
in Anglo-Saxon ears.

"Excuse me, Harry," said Frank, in a moment. "I didn't mean to laugh,
but it does sound funny."

"Of course it does, Frank," said Henri, generously. "I speak English, so
I can see that. But there's nothing funny about the thing, let me tell
you. We began by calling the Boy Scouts Eclaireurs Francais, but
General Baden-Powell didn't like it, so we made the change. Really,
we're a good deal like the English and American scouts. We have the same
oath--we call it serment, of course, and our manual is just a
translation of the English one."

"I was going to join in America, too," said Frank. "But then I came over
here, and I didn't know there were scouts here. Do you wear the same
sort of uniforms?"

"Yes--just like the English," said Harry. "You could join with me,
couldn't you? You're going to be here for a whole year more, aren't
you?"

"Yes. My mother"--he gulped a little at the word--"wanted me to know all
about France, and never to forget that I had French blood in me, you
see. My French grandfather was killed by the Germans at Gravelotte--he
was a colonel of the line. And my mother, even though my father was an
American, was always devoted to France."

"We are like that--we French," said Harry, simply. Into his eyes came
the look that even French boys have when they remember the days of 1870.
"The Germans--yes, they beat us then. We were not ready--we were badly
led. But our time will come--the time of La Revanche. Tell me, Frank,
you have seen the Place de la Concorde, in Paris?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Do you remember the statue of Strassburg?