met Drew of Massachusetts, and actually began my adventures as a
prospective member of the Escadrille Americaine. We had sailed from
New York by the same boat, had made our applications for enlistment in
the Foreign Legion on the same day, without being aware of each
other's existence; and in Paris, while waiting for our papers, we had
gone, every evening, for dinner, to the same large and gloomy-looking
restaurant in the neighborhood of the Seine.

As for the restaurant, we frequented it, not assuredly because of the
quality of the food. We might have dined better and more cheaply
elsewhere. But there was an air of vanished splendor, of faded
magnificence, about the place which, in the capital of a warring
nation, appealed to both of us. Every evening the tables were laid
with spotless linen and shining silver. The wineglasses caught the
light from the tarnished chandeliers in little points of color. At the
dinner-hour, a half-dozen ancient serving-men silently took their
places about the room. There was not a sound to be heard except the
occasional far-off honk of a motor or the subdued clatter of dishes
from the kitchens. The serving-men, even the tables and the empty
chairs, seemed to be listening, to be waiting for the guests who never
came. Rarely were there more than a dozen diners-out during the course
of an evening. There was something mysterious in these elaborate
preparations, and something rather fine about them as well; but one
thought, not without a touch of sadness, of the old days when there
had been laughter and lights and music, sparkling wines and brilliant
talk, and how those merrymakers had gone, many of them, long ago to
the wars.

As it happened on this evening, Drew and I were sitting at adjoining
tables. Our common citizenship was our introduction, and after five
minutes of talk, we learned of our common purpose in coming to
France. I suppose that we must have eaten after making this latter
discovery. I vaguely remember seeing our old waiter hobbling down a
long vista of empty tables on his way to and from the kitchens. But if
we thought of our food at all, it must have been in a purely
mechanical way.

Drew can talk--by Jove, how the man can talk!--and he has the faculty
of throwing the glamour of romance over the most commonplace
adventures. Indeed, the difficulty which I am going to have in writing
this narrative is largely due to this romantic influence of his. I
might have succeeded in