Ten minutes later the mess-room looked grey and dismal—a pitiful contrast to its appearance a few hours before, but the sun rose before long as bright and glorious as ever, to come in at the infirmary window upon Dick Smithson’s scorched brow, while, in company with the hospital attendant, the fat sergeant sat watching with a careworn expression upon his broad, good-humoured face.
“What did he say?” whispered the attendant, after Dick had hurriedly babbled a few words.
“Marks,” said the sergeant; “Marks—he’s thinking about the scars that there’ll be upon his face.”
Chapter Thirty One.
Down in the Dumps.
It was in the hospital by the invalid’s side.
“Don’t you look like that!” said Jerry. “I know how it is! You’re getting better, and are able to think more. When you were ten times as bad, you never used to look so down and say you would never get right again!”
Jerry looked at Brumpton as he delivered himself of this oracular speech, and the fat sergeant declared that he was right; but Dick did not believe either of them.