MRS. CULVER. And how did you get on with your Medical Board this morning?
TRANTO. How marvellous of you to remember that I had a Medical Board this morning! I believe I've found out your secret, Mrs. Culver—you're undergoing a course of Pelman with those sixty generals and forty admirals. Well, the Medical Board have given me a new complaint. You'll be sorry to hear that I'm deformed.
MRS. CULVER. Not deformed!
TRANTO. Yes. It appears I'm flat-footed. ( Extending his leg .) Have I ever told you that I had a dashing military career extending over four months, three of which I spent in hospital for a disease I hadn't got? Then I was discharged as unfit. After a year they raked me in again. Since then I've been boarded five times, and on the unimpeachable authority of various R.A.M.C. Colonels I've been afflicted with valvular disease of the heart, incipient tuberculosis, rickets, varicose veins, diabetes—practically everything, except spotted fever and leprosy. And now flat feet are added to all the rest. Even the Russian collapse and the transfer of the entire German army to the Western Front hasn't raised me higher than C 3.
MRS. CULVER. How annoying for you! You might have risen to be a captain by this time.
HILDEGARDE ( reflectively ). No doubt, in a home unit. But if he'd gone to the Front he would still have been a second lieutenant.
MRS. CULVER. My dear !
TRANTO. Whereas in fact I'm still one of those able-bodied young shirkers in mufti that patriotic old gentlemen in clubs are always writing to my uncles' papers about.
MRS. CULVER. Please! please! ( A slight pause; pulling herself together; cheerfully .) Let me see, you were going in for Siege Artillery, weren't you?
TRANTO. Me! Siege Artillery. My original ambition was trench mortars—not so noisy.