He was getting excited and beginning to toss about on his narrow bed.
“Don’t you think you had better keep quiet and try to go to sleep? The doctor will be here presently,” said Brydell, trying to restrain his tears.
“Well, yes, sir; good-night,” answered Grubb in a pleasant, natural voice.
In a little while the door opened softly and the doctor walked in. He went up to the bed. “He’s asleep, sir,” said Brydell in a whisper. The doctor bent over him and listened for his breathing.
“Yes, he is asleep,” he said after a while. “He will wake no more.”
* * * * * * * *
Brydell told the admiral about Grubb’s last wish.
“It shall be done, by George!” cried the admiral with tears in his eyes.
So poor Grubb, after having served twenty-four, going on twenty-five years, was buried in his uniform and taken covered with the flag to his last resting-place, and nobody asked a word about his discharge papers; the admiral arranged all that.
Behind the coffin of his humble friend walked Brydell, in full uniform; and as he kept the slow step of the funeral march solemnly played by the band, he thought to himself: “This man was a poor uneducated private, but I hope I shall be able to have as good a report to give the Great Captain.”