"Ah, that's nothing, sir," said Piatte; "but look here, sir, I'll tell you what: if you would like to do me a great favour you would come and look after me yourself. You can do anything you like to me, but I do not want that other infantry doctor to mess about with me."
Dr. Lesage promised that he would attend him, and before retiring held out his hand to the injured man. This evidently went to the poor chap's heart, and his eyes moistened.
"Thank you, sir," he said; "thank you. It is good of you to shake hands with me—a bad character as they make me out. If the officers were all like you, why I would jump into the fire for them—and mind you, sir, I won't forget it."
Dr. Lesage retired, more moved than he liked to show. When he had gone, I asked Piatte how he felt.
"A bit queer," he said; "but you don't know, old chap, how well I worked it. I thought I had killed myself, you know."
"Weren't you kicked?" I queried.
"Kicked," he said; "well, it wasn't a horse that kicked me. I'll tell you how it all happened. When I got out of prison yesterday, I said to myself, I must have a spree, so, after 'Lights out,' I got over the wall. You see, my old granny had sent me another ten francs for the New Year, but, of course, being in prison, I only got my money when I came out, so then I jumped over the wall, and, my boy, I can tell you I had a grand booze. At two o'clock this morning I said to myself, 'It is time to go back.' So I got into the little lane at the back of our stable, you know. The wall there on the top side of the lane is only six feet high, so I easily got on top of it, but on the other side there is a drop of at least thirty feet, you know, alongside our stable. I had often done it, and it was only thirty yards along the wall to get to the back door of the barracks, where you can get down quite easy. But last night it had been raining, and freezing afterwards, so that the wall was that slippery that I had to walk on all-fours to keep my balance. I was a bit on, I suppose, and I don't know how it happened, but just as I was getting near the end of the wall I slipped, and down I went. Oh, my boy, what a drop it was! I came down flop, and when I tried to rise it was no go; one of my legs felt like cotton-wool. I knew that if I called for help I should be nabbed, so I crept on all-fours as far as the room. I then went to wake up Titi; he took off my clothes and laid me on my bed. By jove! didn't it hurt me. Titi says to me, 'Let me go and call for help, you can say that you have fallen down stairs.' But I say, 'No, that's no go, and it won't wash.' So we arranged with Titi, that just before réveille he would take me down to the stables, which he did. By God, you don't know what it meant to go to the stables: I felt my heart in my mouth the whole way; to come down the stairs I sat down, and holding on to Titi's neck, I let myself slide, and then to cross the yard I tried to stand on my other leg, but it was all numb; so I sent Titi to fetch Monard, and between them they carried me to the stables and lay me behind your kicking mare, as she's known as a kicker. As soon as the others come down to clean the stables, I shout, 'Ah, murder, murder!' One of them goes and fetches the Sergeant, and I tell him how, passing behind your mare's heels, I got kicked. Titi, in the meantime, had gone to fetch me a stiff glass of brandy, as I felt pretty queer. The Sergeant then sent for a stretcher, and they carried me to the dispensary. When the doctor came I told him I had been kicked, and when he looks at my leg, he says: 'It's jolly funny that it should have got swollen up so quickly.' Of course I told him that I have got a queer constitution, and he says, 'Yes, a queer constitution indeed,' and then he tells the Corporal that I must be taken to the hospital at once, and he sends everybody out of the room, and he says to me:
"'It was not a horse that kicked you, eh, Piatte?'
"'Well, sir,' I says, 'if you ask me, not as an officer, but as the gentleman that you are, I will tell you the truth.'
"'Go on,' he says, ''tis not as an officer that I am asking you.'