Quartermaster-Sergeant Rae turned over the Company roll.
"There is no—no—no man of that profession here, sirr," he reported, after scanning the document. "But," he added optimistically, "there is a machine-fitter and a glass-blower. Will I warn one of them?"
"I think we had better call for a volunteer first," said Major Kemp tactfully.
Accordingly, that afternoon upon parade, Platoon commanders were bidden to hold a witch hunt, and smell out a chiropodist. But the enterprise terminated almost immediately; for Private Dunshie, caressing his injured abdomen in Number Three Platoon, heard the invitation, and quickly stepped forward.
"So you are a chiropodist as well as everything else, Dunshie!" said
Ayling incredulously.
"That's right, sirr," assented Dunshie politely.
"Are you a professional?"
"No exactly that, sirr," was the modest reply.
"You just make a hobby of it?"
"Just that, sirr."