“At the idea of their promoting such a boy as you.”
“What? promoted?” I cried.
“Yes; but I oughtn’t to have let it out. It was told me as a secret.”
“Oh, I am glad,” I cried. “But I say, doctor, I can’t help being such a boy.”
“Don’t try, Gil,” he said; “you don’t grasp it, but to be a boy, sir, is the grandest thing in the world. Never be discontented because you have no moustache. It will come.”
“I am not discontented,” I said maliciously, “only because we have such a bad doctor in the troop.”
“Bad! Why, what do you mean?”
“My arm pained me horribly this morning, and poor old Dost nearly cried as he bathed it, I was in such agony.”
“Bah! stuff!”
“And, then, look at poor Brace,” I said. “You don’t cure him a bit.”