"I know it," he replied, waxing quite angry. "I told you so before, you are always punished—always punished. If it is to tell me that you have come here, you might have stopped at the barracks. Why the deuce don't you tell me what you want? Do you think I am standing here at your orders?"
"If you will allow me to explain, sir," I replied, "I will tell you why and how I have been punished."
"I don't want to know anything about it," said the Colonel, in an angry voice. "Let me see, how many days have you got?"
"Twenty days, sir," I said.
"Have you finished your punishment?"
"No, sir, I have only done two days so far."
"And you dare to come and complain to me! But I ought not to be astonished—for cool cheek and impudence you haven't your equal. Go back to barracks and tell the Adjudant to put you down ten days more for having made an unjustified complaint. That's all—look sharp!"
I saluted, and as I was walking towards the door the Colonel added: "I will teach you not to come and bother me in future." On my way to barracks I thought of the advice the Sergeant fourrier had given me, and I felt distinctly sorry that I had not followed it.
At the end of ten days I began to be so exhausted by sleepless nights and the hard physical work we had now to do that I began to feel seriously ill. I also had a relapse of sore throat accompanied with fever, undoubtedly due to all lack of sanitary precautions in the Salle de Police. Since the warm weather had come, to the other horrors of the place another was added. Fleas and lice came through the boards by thousands, and our rooms were infested with vermin. I went to the medical visit, and the doctor found me so seriously ill that he had to send me to the hospital, promising at the same time that he would do his best to try and get me invalided. A fortnight later he proposed me for invalidation, but the Special Commission before whom I was examined refused to invalid me, but consented to allow me two months' sick leave. I was kept a week longer in hospital, and at the end of that time left the regiment for two months. This interval of respite I spent in Switzerland, where I did a good deal of mountain climbing.