"Whatever it is," said the surgeon a little impatiently, "I don't want to pronounce any opinion on your conduct"
"By heavens, you had better not!" burst out D'Hubert.
"There!—there! Don't be so quick in flourishing the sword. It doesn't pay in the long run. Understand once for all that I would not carve any of you youngsters except with the tools of my trade. But my advice is good. If you go on like this you will make for yourself an ugly reputation."
"Go on like what?" demanded Lieut. D'Hubert, stopping short, quite startled. "I!—I!—make for myself a reputation. . . . What do you imagine?"
"I told you I don't wish to judge of the rights and wrongs of this incident. It's not my business. Nevertheless"
"What on earth has he been telling you?" interrupted Lieut. D'Hubert, in a sort of awed scare.
"I told you already, that at first, when I picked him up in the garden, he was incoherent. Afterwards he was naturally reticent. But I gather at least that he could not help himself."
"He couldn't?" shouted Lieut. D'Hubert in a great voice. Then, lowering his tone impressively, "And what about me? Could I help myself?"
The surgeon stood up. His thoughts were running upon the flute, his constant companion with a consoling voice. In the vicinity of field ambulances, after twenty-four hours' hard work, he had been known to trouble with its sweet sounds the horrible stillness of battlefields, given over to silence and the dead. The solacing hour of his daily life was approaching, and in peace time he held on to the minutes as a miser to his hoard.
"Of course!—of course!" he said, perfunctorily.
