"I can't!" whispered Tom, who seemed to be a mere boy, though his length was something preposterous. "The bed is too short."
"Well, crumple up some way," said the ward-master, laughing. "I'll have you up next week, fever or no fever. If you lie there much longer, you'll grow through the other side of the ward."
"It isn't my fault," Tom said pitifully to Miss Hamilton, who sat near him. "When I went to bed here, five weeks ago, I wasn't any taller than the ward-master; and now I believe I'm seven feet long. I believe it was that everlasting quinine!" And poor Tom burst into tears.
"Here they are!" said the ward-master. "Attention!"
Instantly all was silence. Each convalescent stood at the foot of his bed, and the nurses were drawn up inside the door. The little procession of surgeons appeared, marched up one side of the ward and down the other, and out the door; and the inspection was over.
As they passed by her, one of them, in drawing his handkerchief from his pocket, drew with it a card, which, unseen by him, dropped at Margaret's feet. She took it up, and saw the photograph of the gentleman who had dropped it, dressed in the uniform of a Confederate colonel.
"Who was that last surgeon in the line?" she asked of Tom.
"That's our surgeon, Doctor A——. He is a Virginian."
"Who is his guarantee here, do you know?" she inquired.
"He's a friend of Senator Wyly's," Tom said.