“No, no, of course not. I’m a queer dick, probably, but I’ve got reasons for what I think. Don’t ask questions, if you don’t want my answers.” He touched the decorations I wore and said, “I’m human enough, though, to be glad you’re wearing those. Picked up a couple myself, with the Canadians.”
“We never heard—”
“I was under an assumed name. Tell them at home about it when you write.”
“Alan, there’s one thing,” I said, voicing a thought that had been uppermost in my mind, “one thing I have a right to know—”
“Oh, go along with you. Of course, you’d have to say the obvious thing,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder. “I’m well fixed. Thanks just the same. And don’t worry about me; I’m picking up amazingly. Come again. Come again, soon.”
He went off into the back room, that I might not hear his coughing.
“Is he any better?” I asked of Toinon, who had followed me to the door.
She shook her head.
“Gas—at Neuve Chapelle.”
“No hope?”