r
discipline and acts."

"So do I," said the Major, "and I recant all I said about them before.
There, sir, will that satisfy you?"

"Quite, Graham," said the Colonel. "There, we must be hopeful. I
couldn't bear for poor Bracy to become a wreck."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A BIT QUEER.

"Tell us all about it," said Bracy as he lay partially dressed outside
his simple charpoy bed in the small room Doctor Morton had annexed for
his officer patients.

"All about what?" said Roberts, who had come in, according to his daily
custom, to sit for a while and cheer up his suffering friend.

"All about what? All about everything that has been going on--is going
on."

"And is going to go on!" said Roberts, laughing. "That's a large order,
old chap."

"You may laugh," said Bracy dolefully; "but you don't know what it is to
be lying here staring at the sky."

"And mountains."

"Pah! Well, at the mountains too, day after day, in this wearisome way.
I hear the bugle and the firing, and sometimes a shout or two, and then
I lie wondering what everything means--whether we're driving them away
or being beaten, and no one to tell me anything but that dreadful woman;
for old Morton thinks of nothing but sword-cuts and bullet-wounds, and
will only talk of one's temperature or one's tongue. I tell you it's
maddening when one wants to be up and doing something."

"Patience, patience, old man. You're getting better fast."

"How do you know?" cried Bracy petulantly.

"Morton ways so."

"Morton's an old--old--old woman," cried Bracy angrily. "I'm sick of
him. I'm sick of that other disagreeable woman. I'm sick of physic--
sick of everything."

"Poor old chap!" said Roberts, laying his cool hand upon his friend's
burning forehead. "Come, you'll feel better after that."

"Don't--don't talk that way--and take away your hand. You make me feel
as if I must hit you."

"I wish you would, old man, if it would make you feel better."

"Better! Pah! It's horrible. Morton only talks. Says I'm better when
I'm worse."

"Oh, come now, that won't do, you know. You are stronger."

"Pah! How can I be stronger when I am as weak as a baby, unable to move
hand or foot? There; I beg pardon for being so disagreeable."

"Oh, nonsense! Who thinks you disagreeable?"

"You do, Rob; only you're such a good old chap that you won't notice my
sick man's whims."

"Love 'em," said Roberts coolly. "More you go it the better I like