"Yes," I groaned, "I had pain there."
"Ah!" he shook his head. "And there?" He sat down heavily on my right ankle. He is a ponderous man.
"Agony," I moaned.
"Ah! And something throbbing like a gong in the brain?" he inquired, tapping me on the head with the metal mirror.
I nodded dumbly. He rose, shrugging his shoulders.
"All the symptoms, I'm afraid. That's just how it took poor old Simpson. He had this very cot—let me see, back in '16, I suppose. I had it very slightly afterwards—it was touch and go; I was the only one they pulled through—but I only had it very slightly, you understand—not like that. But cheer up, old man. I've been told that a fellow got through it in the next ward—of course he's an idiot now, but he didn't die. I don't suppose you'll be wanting the rest of these apples, will you? All right, don't mention it;" and he passed on to the next cot.
When the proper doctor came round a few minutes later (Burnett says) he found his own thermometer quite inadequate and had to borrow the one that registers the heat of the ward. When he took it out of my mouth it wasn't far short of boiling-point, and he wrote straight off to The Lancet about it; also they had to get one of those lightning calculator chaps down to count my pulse.
Long before I came to, Ellis had been discharged, the ward had filled up with fresh cases (except Burnett, of course), and the armistice had been signed.
When I was well enough they handed me a letter which Ellis had left for me.