“You do, Rob; only you’re such a good old chap that you won’t notice my sick man’s whims.”
“Love ’em,” said Roberts coolly. “More you go it the better I like it, because it’s all a sign of the spirit in you kicking against your weakness. I know how you feel—want to come and have another go in at the Dwats?”
“Yes,” said Bracy in a sharp whisper through his closed teeth. “I do long to help give them an awful thrashing.”
“Of course you do, my boy; and you shall soon. Now, if, instead of kicking against hospital routine, you took to it in a mean, spiritless sort of way, and lay there waiting to be roused up to speak, I should feel uncomfortable about you, for I should know it was a bad sign.—You’ll be all right soon.”
Bracy was silent for a few minutes, and lay gazing wistfully through the window at the dazzling snow-peaks flashing miles away in the bright sunshine. Then he shook his head slowly from side to side.
“It’s of no use to be self-deceiving,” he said at last. “I know as well as can be, Rob, what’s wrong. I’m not going to die.”
“Die? Ha, ha! I should think not. Take more than a bullet-hole to kill you.”
Bracy smiled, and looked sadly in his friend’s eyes.
“It’s precious hard, old fellow,” he said; “for as I lie here I feel that I’m almost a boy still, and it comes so soon.”
“What comes so soon?”