"Explain yourself," he muttered hoarsely.
"For the past three months," I said, "I have endured fifty-six of the darkest hours of the night, cut off from any possibility of human aid, in the company of William Smith, a conversational egoist of the lowest and most determined type. Throughout this period he has inflicted on me atrocities before which those of the Germans pale into insignificance. During the first month he described to me in detail the achievements and diseases from birth upwards of all his children—a revolting record. He next proceeded to deal exhaustively with the construction and working of his gramophone, his bathroom geyser, his patent knife-machine and his vacuum carpet-cleaner; also with his methods of drying wet boots, marking his under-linen, circumventing the water-rate collector and inducing fertility in reluctant pullets. This brought us to the middle of November. Finally, during the last four weeks he has wandered into the ramifications of his wife's early-Victorian family tree, of which we are still in the lower branches.
"I cannot retaliate in kind. I have no children, poultry, pedigree wives, nor any of the other articles, except boots and shirts, in which the soul of William Smith rejoices. There is but one remedy open to me, and of this, unless you detail me for duty with someone else, I propose to avail myself at the first convenient opportunity. I shall kill William Smith."
I stopped and saluted again.
And then a wonderful thing happened. I discovered that beneath our sergeant's military leggings there still beat the rudiments of a human heart. Yes, as I looked at him I saw his softened eyes suffused with sympathetic tears.
"My poor fellow!" he said in a broken voice.
It was too much. I sank to the pavement, saluting as I fell, and knew no more. When I recovered consciousness in hospital I found in the pocket of my coat an envelope containing the following: "Promoted to the rank of corporal and invalided for three weeks, after which you will take duty with your chauffeur."
William Smith and I have severed diplomatic relations. It is better so.