“No, Doctor. I want to get up.”
“And make yourself worse?”
“No; but after what you have done, I feel so much better and more comfortable that I want to be up and doing.”
“Nonsense! You have been doing ten times too much, and I tell you seriously, sir, that another day or two of what you have gone through in making your escape, and you must have been dangerously ill with fever.”
“But I feel so much better, Doctor.”
“Of course you do. I was just able to catch you in the nick of time, and now I have done my part, and you must leave the rest to Nature.”
“But I want to go out with one of the detachments.”
“What for? To break down directly, and interfere with the good four or half-a-dozen of the lads would be doing, from their time being taken up in carrying you on a bamboo litter?”
“Oh Doctor, I shouldn’t break down.”
“Oh, wouldn’t you? Nice piece of impudence! Here am I, who have devoted half my life to the tinkering up of damaged soldiers, and know to a tittle how much a man can bear, all wrong, of course! And you, a young jackanapes of a subaltern, a mere boy, tell me to my face that you know better than I do!”