“Sure, you never was. I never was, neither, before—before—”
“Before what?”
“Before I had to.”
“Had to?”
“Yeh; both of them. Bleedin’ all the time. Didn’t see nothing but red for ’leven months.”
“You!”
“Yeh; three years ago. Looked like Arizona on a stretcher for me.”
“You—so big and strong and all!”
He smiled at her and his teeth flashed.
“Gad, little girl, if you got a right to be scared, whatta you think I had? I seen your card over at the clinic last night, and you ain’t got no right to have that down-and-out look on you had this morning. If you think you got something to be scared at you looka my old card at the clinic some day; they keep it for show. You oughtta seen me the day I quit the shipping room, right over at the Titanic, too, and then see whether you got something to be scared at.”