“Why, man, you must not talk like that. You are as good as a dozen dead men yet,” said Larry, trying to look as cheerful as might be.
“I am as good as dead myself,” said his friend seriously, as befitted a man under the shadow of death; “and I have no wish to live. The sooner I am out of this pain and powerlessness the better I shall like it.”
“I say, John, old man, this is no way for you to talk! Brace up, and you will soon be another man!”
“I shall soon be in another world, I hope,” and the helpless misery of the tone in which these few words were said smote Laurence Laughton to the heart.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked with as lively an air as he could attain, for the ominous and inexplicable sadness of the situation was fast taking hold on him.
“I have a bullet through the lungs and a pain in the heart.”
“But men do not die of a bullet in the lungs and a pain in the heart,” was Larry’s encouraging response.
“I shall.”
“Why should you more than others?”
“Because there is something else—something mysterious, some unknown malady—which bears me down and burns me up. There is no use trying to deceive me, Larry. My papers are made out, and I shall get my discharge from the Army of the Living in a very few days now. But I must not waste the little breath I have left in talking about myself. I sent for you to ask a favor.”