“‘You go to blazes!’ he sez, and crosses over like I told him.  And pretty soon I seen him gettin’ all red and I knew he was goin’ to shoot some French at the old lady, and, sure enough, out he come with, ‘Madame je swee enchantay.’”

“Well, sir, I like to ‘ve died tryin’ to keep from laughin’ at that, because what it means translated is, ‘Madam, I’m deelighted.’  Trust them marines to say the right thing at the wrong time—­I’ll say they do.”

“By the time I get under control we’re opposite the French Aviation Headquarters—­you know, the Service Technique on the Bullyvard Saint-Germain.  Well, there was a lot of doughboys hangin’ around there wastin’ time, and I see one on a motor-cycle with a sergeant sittin’ in the side-car.  So I step out of the ranks and sez to the sergeant, ‘What ya doin’?’ And he sez, ’Waitin’—­but there’s nobody home at all, at all.’  So I sez:  ’Well, you and your side-car is commandeered for this funeral.  We’re buryin’ a frawg and we need some more mourners.  The old lady is his widowed mother, and the corpse, he’s her only son and her a widow.’  He sez:  ’Shure, Oi’ll come, an’ Oi’ll be afther gettin’ some o’ thim other divvles to jine.  Me name is Roilly.’  ‘Right-o, old dear,’ I sez.  ’I didn’t think it was Moses and Straus.’”

“Well, sir, Reilly was a good scout, and inside of a minute he had six doughboys lined up behind the hearse and him bringin’ up the rear in the side-car.  The side-car kept backfirin’, and it sounded like we was firin’ salutes to the dead all the way to the park.

“I wanta tell ya, that old lady was tickled.  Why, there we was already ten strong, with more to come, because I drafted three gobs at the Bullyvard Raspail.  They wasn’t quite sober, but I kep’ my eye on ’em and they behaved fine.  I sez to them:  ’You drunken bums, you!  You join this funeral or I’ll see you’re put in the brig to-night.’  But to make sure they’d not disgrace Mr. Daniels’s uniform I put ’em right behind the widow and the marine and me.

“Well, it appears that one of ’em talks French good—­real good, I mean, sir—­like a frawg waiter or a coacher.”

“Or a what?” interjected Erskine.

“Or a coacher,” repeated Steve, with dignity.  “The fact is, he talked it so good that—­well, never mind that yet.  He’s a smart fellow, though, Mr. Erskine, by the name of Rathbone.  Well, never mind—­only he’s a good fellow and ’ud be pretty useful here, with his French and everything.

“Well, anyway, I begun to wonder after a while where that fellow driving the hearse was takin’ us to.  We’d gone out the old Bullyvard Raspail a deuce of a way, and Napoleon One showed no signs of stoppin’ them horses, and I didn’t see no cemetery.

“I sez to the marine, ‘I guess we’re not goin’ to stop till we get to Chateau-Teery,’ and he sez, ‘You go to hell and stop there.’  So I sez, ‘I hope the poor old lady don’t understand your English.’