"Non, monsieur."
"Not a word?" I asked, mournfully and despairingly.
The reply of the habitant was a crushing one:
"Pas un mot, monsieur!"
The doctor burst into a shriek of sardonic laughter.
CHAPTER IX.
BY ONE'S OWN FIRESIDE.—THE COMFORTS OF A BACHELOR.—CHEWING THE CUD OF SWEET AND BITTER FANCY.—A DISCOVERY FULL OF MORTIFICATION AND EMBARRASSMENT.—JACK RANDOLPH AGAIN.—NEWS FROM THE SEAT OF WAR.
By six o'clock in the evening I was back in my room again. The doctor had chaffed me so villanously all the way back that my disappointment and mortification had vanished, and had given place to a feeling of resentment. I felt that I had been ill-treated. After saving a girl's life, to be dropped so quietly and so completely, was more than flesh and blood could stand. And then there was that confounded doctor. He fairly revelled in my situation, and forgot all about his fatigue. However, before I left him, I extorted from him a promise to say nothing about it, swearing if he didn't I'd sell out and quit the service. This promise he gave, with the remark that he would reserve the subject for his own special use.
Once within my own room, I made myself comfortable in my own quiet way, viz.:
1. A roaring, red-hot fire. 2. Curtains close drawn. 3. Sofa pulled up beside said fire. 4. Table beside sofa. 5. Hot water. 6. Whiskey. 7. Tobacco. 8. Pipes. 9. Fragrant aromatic steam. 10. Sugar. 11. Tumblers. 12. Various other things not necessary to mention, all of which contributed to throw over my perturbed spirit a certain divine calm.