Buller shook his head, his unhappy eyes on the worn rug of his office floor. The shake of that head inflamed Red into wild speech, his fist clenched and brought down on Buller’s desk till bottles jumped and papers flew off into space. Then, suddenly, he brought himself up short.
“All right,” he growled. “I’ve blown off. Now—explain yourself, if you can—which I doubt. But I can at least give you the chance.”
Buller cleared his throat. He ran his hand through the rapidly graying locks above his anxious brow, sat down at his desk again—as though it might be a little easier to say what he had to say in this customary seat of the judge delivering sentence—and looked unwillingly up at his friend. Red had moved up and closed in on him as he sat down, towering over the desk like a defiant prisoner.
“Get it over,” he commanded briefly.
“I’ll try to, Red, but—it’s hard to know how to begin.... You—suppose you let me go over you, will you?—as a sort of preliminary to the examination the Government surgeons will give you.”
“What for? Do you think I can’t pass? Is that what’s bothering you?” A relieved laugh came with the words. “Me?” He smote his broad chest with all the confidence in the world—and Buller winced at the gesture. “Why, I’m strong as an ox.”
Buller opened a drawer and took out a stethoscope. “Well—you won’t mind——” he said, apologetically, and came around the desk as a man might who had to put a pistol to the head of a beloved dog, and was dreading the sound of the shot.
“All right. But it’s about the foolest thing I ever knew you to put up to me.” Red pulled off his coat, stripped rapidly to the waist, and presented himself for the inquisition.
Two minutes of absolute silence succeeded during which Buller swallowed twice as if he were trying to get rid of his own palate. Then he stood up with his hand on Red’s shoulder.
“I’m—awfully sorry, lad,” he said—and looked it, in a fashion the other could not doubt.