When he became officer in the Legion, he appeared at my mother's
quite radiant, so that she asked him the reason of this unusual joy.
'Regardez bien, madame, there is something new.' The new thing which my
mother discovered was a tiny _rosette_ ornamenting his red ribbon."
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.
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