"Thank you," said Hamilton, in a broken voice, "for saving my life."
"Oh, I say, sir," began Bones feebly.
"To carry a man eighty miles on your back is no mean accomplishment, Bones—especially when I was unconscious——"
"I don't say you were unconscious, sir. In fact, sir——" floundered Lieutenant Tibbetts as red as a peony.
"And yet I was unconscious," insisted Hamilton firmly. "I am still unconscious, even to this day. I have no recollection of your heroic effort, Bones, I thank you."
"Well, sir," said Bones, "to make a clean breast of the whole affair——"
"And this dangerous expedition of yours, Bones, an expedition from which you might never return—that," said Hamilton in a hushed voice, "is the best story I have heard for years."
"Sir," said Bones, speaking under the stress of considerable emotion, "I am clean bowled, sir. The light-hearted fairy stories which I wrote to cheer, so to speak, the sick-bed of an innocent child, sir, they have recoiled upon my own head. Peccavi, mea culpi, an' all those jolly old expressions that you'll find in the back pages of the dictionary."
"Oh, Bones, Bones!" chuckled Hamilton.
"You mustn't think I'm a perfect liar, sir," began Bones, earnestly.