This rosette was so very small that nobody noticed it, and Guynemer felt that he must complain to the shopman at the Palais Royal who had sold it to him.

“Give me a larger one, a huge one,” he said; “nobody sees this.”

* * * * *

The tradesman spread a number of rosettes on his counter, but Guynemer only took back again the one of which he had complained, and went out laughing as if the whole thing had been a good joke.

His officer’s stripes gave him as much pleasure as his decorations.  Every time he was promoted, he wanted his stripes sewn on, not in a day or an hour, or even five minutes, but immediately.  He received his captain’s commission the same day he had been given the Distinguished Service order, and he promptly went to see his friend, Captain de la Tour, who was wounded in the hospital at Nancy.  This officer had lost three brothers in action, and loved Guynemer as if he had been another younger brother.  Indeed, Guynemer said later that La Tour loved him more than any other did.

“Don’t you see any change in me?” Guynemer asked.

“No, you’re just as usual.”

“No, there’s a change!”

“Oh, I see; you mean your English order; it does look well.”

“There’s something else.  Look closer.”

La Tour at last discovered the three stripes on the cap and sleeves.

“What!  Are you a captain?”

“Yes, a captain,” and Guynemer laughed his boyish laugh.—­This kid a captain!  So I am not an impressive captain, then?  I haven’t run risks enough to be a captain, probably!—­His laugh said all this.

Lieutenant Constantin also says in his notes:  “Guynemer disliked walking about Paris, because people recognized him.  When he saw them turn to look at him, he would grumble at the curse of having a face that was public property.  So he preferred waiting for evening, and then drove his little white car up the Champs Elysees to the Bois.  He enjoyed this peaceful recreation thoroughly, and forgot the excitement of his life at the front.  Memories of our boyhood days came back to him, and he dwelt on them with delight:  ’Do you remember one day in seconde when we quarreled and fought like madmen?  You made such a mark on my arm that it is there yet.’  He did not mind, but I was ashamed of having been such a young brute.  Another day, in May, 1917, coming home on leave I met Georges just as he stepped out of his hotel, and as I had just been mentioned in dispatches I told him about it.  Immediately he dragged me into a shop, bought a croix de guerre, pinned it on my vareuse, and hugged me before everybody.”

Guynemer had a genius for graciousness, and his imagination was inexhaustible when he wished to please, but his temper was hot and quick.  One day he had left his motor at the door of the hotel, and some practical joker thought it clever to leave a note in the car with this inscription in large letters:  AVIATORS TO THE FRONT!  Guynemer did not take the joke at all, and was boiling with rage.