"They certainly are. You wouldn't need a gun, not with those teeth you wouldn't—you could just naturally bite a German in two."
Jeff shivered. The very suggestion was abhorrent to his nature.
"Please suh, don't—don't talk lak that," he entreated. "I ain't cravin' to bite nobody a-tall, 'specially 'tis Germans. Live an' let live—tha's my sayin'."
"Yep," went on the doctor, prolonging the agony for the victim, "your teeth are perfect and your lungs are sound, your heart action is splendid and I know something about your appetite myself, having seen you eat. Black boy, listen to me! In every respect you are absolutely qualified physically to make a regular man-eating bearcat of a soldier"—he paused—"in every respect excepting one—no, two."
If a drowning man clutching for a straw might be imagined as coincidentally asking a question, it is highly probable he would ask it in the tone now used by Jeff.
"Meanin'—meanin' w'ich, suh?"
"I mean your feet. You've got flat feet, Jeff—you've got the flattest feet I ever saw. I don't understand it either. So far as I've been able to observe you've spent the greater part of your life sitting down. Somebody must have hit you on the head with an ax when you were standing on a plowshare and broke your arches down."
It was an old joke, but it fitted the present case, and Jeff, not to be outdone in politeness, laughed louder at it than its maker did. Indeed Jeff felt he had reason to laugh; a great load was lifting from his soul.
"Jeff," went on the doctor, "deeply though it may grieve both of us, it nevertheless is my painful duty to inform you that you have two perfectly good exemptions from military service—a right one and a left one. Now grab your hat and get out of here."