"Then I don't want any opiate, sir," replied Dick bluntly. "I don't care whether I'm kept here a day or a year, or what I have to suffer, only as long as I don't have to lose an active career in the service!"
"Good for you, my young soldier," beamed the surgeon, patting the cadet's hand. "The superintendent telephoned over, a little while ago, to ask how you were. I told him that your grit was the best we had seen here in a long time."
"Thank you, sir."
"And the superintendent replied, dryly enough, that he expected that from your general record. The superintendent sent you his personal regards."
"Thank you, sir, and the superintendent, too."
"Oh, and a lot of others have been inquiring about you, too—-the K.C. and all of the professors and most of the instructors. And at least a small regiment of cadets have tramped down as far as the office door also. I've been saving the names of inquirers, and will tell you the names in the morning. All except the names of the cadets, that is. There was too big a mob of cadets for us to attempt to keep the names."
It was a painful, restless, feverish night for Prescott. He slept a part of the time, though when he did his sleep was filled with nightmares.
The surgeons won his gratitude by their devotion to his interests. The first half of the night Captain Goodwin was in at least every hour. The latter half of the night it was Lieutenant Sadtler who made the round.
By permission Cadet Holmes came to the hospital office just after breakfast.
It was a gloomy face that poor Greg wore back to barracks with him.