ions. It is an odd
thing to me that men like Colonel Travers and yourself, for instance,
care to give up your lives to an empire that is like a badly deranged
stomach with a craving for unhealthy objects."

"We haven't got to think about it," said Winn. "We keep the corner we
are in quiet."

"Yes," said Dr. Gurnet sympathetically, "I know; but I think it would be
better if you had to think about it. Perhaps it wouldn't be necessary to
keep things quiet if they were more thoroughly exposed to thought."

Winn's attention wandered to the tiger skins.

"Did you bag those fellows yourself?" he asked. Dr. Gurnet smilingly
agreed. After this Winn didn't so much mind having his chest examined.

But the examination of his chest, though a long and singularly thorough
operation, seemed to Dr. Gurnet a mere bead strung on an extended
necklace. He hadn't any idea, as the London specialist had had, that
Winn could only have one organ and one interest. He came upon him with
the effect of bouncing out from behind a screen with a series of funny,
flat little questions. Sometimes Winn thought he was going to be angry
with him, but he never was. There was a blithe impersonal touch in Dr.
Gurnet, a smiling willingness to look on private histories as of less
importance than last year's newspapers. It was as if he airily explained
to his patients that really they had better put any facts there were on
the files, and let the housemaid use the rest for the kitchen fire; and
he required very little on Winn's part. From a series of reluctant
monosyllables he built up a picturesque and reliable structure of his
new patient's life. They weren't by any means all physical questions. He
wanted to know if Winn knew German. Winn said he didn't, and added that
he didn't like Germans.

"Then you should take some pains to understand them," observed Dr.
Gurnet. "Not to understand the language of an enemy is the first step
toward defeat. Why, it is even necessary sometimes to understand one's
friends."

Winn said that he had a friend he understood perfectly; his name was
Lionel Drummond.

"I know him through and through," he explained; "that's why I trust
him." Dr. Gurnet looked interested, but not convinced.

"Ah," he said, "personally I shouldn't trust any man till he was dead.
You know where you are then, you know. Before that one prophesies. By
the by, are you married?" Dr. Gurnet did not raise his eyes at this
question, but before Winn's lea