"Look at the picture—see for yourself. Multiple and compound fractures, you notice, of legs and arm, and a few ribs. Scapula, of course—there. Oh, yes, there's a skull fracture, too, but it doesn't amount to much. That's all. The spine, you see, isn't injured at all."
"What d'you mean, 'that's all'? How about his wounds? I saw some of them myself, and they were not pin pricks."
"Nothing of the least importance. A few punctured wounds and a couple of incised ones, but nothing even close to a vital part. He won't need even a transfusion, since he stopped the major hemorrhages himself, shortly after he was wounded. There are a few burns, of course, but they are mostly superficial—none that will not yield quite readily to treatment."
"Mighty glad of that. He'll be here six weeks then?"
"Better call it twelve, I think—ten at least. You see, some of the fractures, especially those in the left leg, and a couple of the burns, are rather severe, as such things go. Then, too, the length of time elapsing between injury and treatment didn't do anything a bit of good."
"In two weeks he'll be wanting to get up and go places and do things; and in six he'll be tearing down your hospital, stone by stone."
"Yes." The surgeon smiled. "He is not the type to make an ideal patient; but, as I have told you before, I like to have patients that we do not like."
"And another thing. I want the files on his nurses, particularly the red-headed one."
"I suspected that you would, so I had them sent down. Here you are. Glad you noticed MacDougall—she's by way of being my favorite. Clarrissa MacDougall—Scotch, of course, with that name—twenty years old. Height, one hundred sixty-eight centimeters; weight, sixty-six kilos. Here are her pictures. Never mind the conventional photo; this X-ray is the one that counts. Man, look at that skeleton! Beautiful! The only really perfect skeleton I ever saw in a woman——"