"Can't you keep quiet, confound you!"
But Bouchut's attention was again distracted by the arrival of a surgeon-lieutenant. They gossiped for a moment and then returning at last to De Valpic, he said:
"Then you don't cough at all?"
"Hardly at all, sir."
"Do you want to go to the front?"
"Certainly, sir."
"Very well, then. Must not be overdone," he dictated to me.
The examination came to an end. When I went out I came across the man with the rupture again. He was cursing and swearing! "Well, if that wasn't a shame! To make an old dragoon, with an illness like that, walk! They were a set of bullies, that's what they were!..." But he'd be even with them yet! He knew a thing or two. The first time they were under fire, he would stagger, and let himself fall. But first, he was going to write to Sembat, who was a pal of his.
"Switch off Loriot!" somebody warned him. "Here come the N.C.O.'s!"