“I say,” he said, “does your Doctor always talk shop like that?”
“Well, not quite, but pretty frequently—eh, Roberts?”
The latter smiled grimly.
“He’s a bit of an enthusiast in his profession, Drummond,” he said. “Very clever man.”
“Oh, is he? Well, I should like him better if he wasn’t quite so much so. Did you see how he looked at me?”
“No.”
“I did. Just as if he was turning me inside out, and I felt as if he were going all over me with one of those penny trumpet things doctors use to listen to you with. I know he came to the conclusion that I was too thin, and that he ought to put me through a course of medicine.”
“Nonsense.”
“Oh, but he did. Thank goodness, though, I don’t belong to your regiment.”
The young men were very warmly welcomed in the officers’ quarters; and it seemed that morning as if their coming had brought sunshine into the dreary place, every worn face beginning to take a more hopeful look.