“No, but they told me to run along home like a good boy and get my degree. I’m not an M.D., you know. And there’s a shortage. So I had to come.”
“Same here; I had to come.” And Shotwell, for Estridge’s enlightenment, held a post-mortem over the premature decease of his promising military career.
“Too bad,” commented the latter. “It sure was exciting while it lasted––our mixing it in the great game. There’s pandemonium to pay in Russia, now;––I rather hated to leave.... But it was either leave or be shot up. The Bolsheviki are impossible.... Are you walking up town?”
They fell into step together.
“You’ll go back to the P. & S., I suppose,” ventured Shotwell.
“Yes. And you?”
“Oh, I’m already nailed down to the old oaken desk. Sharrow’s my boss, if you remember?”
“It must seem dull,” said Estridge sympathetically.
“Rotten dull.”