sorts.

The trio of recruits stood together in an unhappy group, awaiting orders
from the regimental offices; and the news of their advent must have run
ahead of them with magic speed, swiftly as news travels in the desert,
for everywhere along the front of the yellow buildings surrounding the
square, windows flew open, heads of soldiers peered out, and voices
shouted eagerly: "_Voila les bleus!_" There were only three newcomers,
and the arrival of recruits in the barrack square was an everyday
spectacle; but something to gaze at was better than nothing at all. Men
in fatigue uniform of spotless white, their waists wound round with wide
blue sashes, came running up to see the sight, before _les bleus_ should
be marched away and lose their value as objects of interest by donning
soldier clothes. Max recalled the day of his debut at West Point, a
humble, modest "Pleb." This huge, gravelled courtyard, surrounded on
three sides by tall, many-windowed barracks, and shut away from the Rue
de Tlemcen by high iron railings, had no resemblance to the cadets'
barracks of gray stone; but the emotions of the "Pleb" and of the
recruit to the Legion were curiously alike. The same thought presented
itself to the soldier that had wisely counselled the new cadet. "I must
take it all as it comes, and keep my temper unless some one insults me.
Then--well, I'll have to make myself respected now or never."

"_Les bleus! Voila les bleus!_" was the cry from every quarter: and
discipline not being the order of the moment for Legionnaires off duty,
young soldiers and old soldiers gathered round, making such remarks as
occurred to them, witty or ribald. _Les bleus_ were fair game.

As a schoolboy, Max had read in some book that, in the time of Napoleon
First, French recruits had been nicknamed "les bleus" because of the
asphyxiating high collars which had empurpled their faces with a
suffusion of blood. Little had he dreamed in committing that fact to
memory that one day the name would be applied to him! Thinking thus, he
smiled between amusement and bitterness; but the smile died as a voice
whispered in his ear: "For God's sake don't sell your clothes to the
Jews. Keep them for me. I'll get hold of them somehow."

The voice spoke in French. Max turned quickly, and could not resist a
slight start at seeing close to his, the face which had seized his
attention days ago in the railway station.

The man who had then been dressed in dusty black