I judge he earned his bauble.
I tried Von Theobald next--a lynx-faced, square-shouldered young man of the field guns.

To him I put the question: "What have you done, now, to merit the bestowal of the Cross ?" "Well," he said--and his smile was born of embarrassment, I thought-- "there was shooting once or twice, and I--well, I did not go away.

I remained." So after that I quit asking.

But it was borne in upon me that if these gold-braceletted, monocled, wasp-waisted exquisites could go jauntily forth for flirtations with death as afore-time I had seen them going, then also they could be marvelously modest touching on their own performances in the event of their surviving those most fatal blandishments.
Pretty soon we told the Staff good night, according to the ritualistic Teutonic fashion, and took ourselves off to bed; for the next day was expected to be a full day, which it was indeed and verily.

In the hotels of the town, such as they were, officers were billeted, four to the room and two to the bed; but the commandant enthroned at the Hotel de Ville looked after our comfort.