“But, Doctor, it wasn't his fault,” gasped the sick man, painfully. “I begged so hard to go out that he couldn't refuse me. It was so hot in here and smelled so badly, that I felt I should die unless I got a breath of fresh air.”
“Silence!” thundered the Surgeon; “I'll have no talking back to me. Steward, send that Wardmaster to the guard-house for disobedience of orders. No. 7, you refused to take your medicine yesterday. Steward, double his prescription, and if he shows the least resistance to taking it, have the nurses hold him and force it down his throat. Do you hear? There, why don't you hold still?” (This to a man who was having a large blister applied to his back.)
“It hurts so,” answered the sufferer.
“Hurts, eh? Well, I'll show you what hurts some of these days, when I cut your leg off. Well, what do you want, youngster?”
A slender, white-faced boy was standing at the foot of his cot, at “attention,” and saluting respectfully.
“If you please,” said he, “I'd like to be discharged, and go back to my company. I'm well enough now to do duty, and I'll be entirely well in a short time, if I can get out of doors into the fresh air.”
“Indeed,” answered Dr. Moxon, with a sneer, “may I inquire when you began to diagnose cases, and offer advice to your superior officers? Why don't you set up in the practice of medicine at once, and apply for a commission as Surgeon in the Army? Step back, an don't ever speak to me again in this manner, or it'll be the worse for you, I can tell you. I know when you are fit to go back to duty, and I won't have patients annoying me with their whims and fancies. Step back, sir.”
Thus he passed along, leaving anger and humiliation behind him, as a steamer leaves a wake of waves beaten into a froth.
“Old Sawbones made a mistake with his morning cocktail, and mixed a lot of wormwood with it,” said one of the “convalescents,” in an undertone to those about him.
“This awful hot weather's spilin' most everything,” said another, “and the old man's temper never was any too sweet.”