ng up at
all? He was pretty down in the mouth last time I saw him."

The Doctor's genial countenance clouded slightly. "Well, no!" he said,
gravely, "he's not doing well at all. I've been rather worried over him
lately. The man's relapsed into a curious state of inertia--seems
incapable of being roused. Organically he's nothing to fear now; I'll
stake my professional reputation on that. But when a man gets down like
he is now, why, the mind often reacts on the body with serious results.
If he was in a tropical climate he'd snuff out like a candle. That's all
that's retarding his otherwise certain recovery now--if we could only----"

Here, McCullough, who had been an interested listener broke in. "Rouse
him, Doctor?" he queried, "you say he wants rousing? . . . Is that
all? . . . All right then! . . . I know him better than you do--I'll
bet you I'll rouse him!" he concluded a trifle brutally.

And he swung off on his crutches and presently levered himself into the
ward where Hardy lay.

In actual bodily recovery the latter's physical condition fully equalled
Redmond's, but the brooding, listless demeanor of the patient confirmed
only too well the Doctor's diagnosis. Now, sunk in the coma of utter
dejection, Hardy was lying back on his pillows like a man weary of life.

Sometime earlier, in response to his earnest solicitations, he had been
allowed to have his beloved parrot in hospital with him. All day long
the disreputable-looking bird gabbled away contentedly as it climbed
around in its cage, which had been placed on a small table alongside the
cot.

McCullough's first move was to resort to the never-failing expedient of
arousing the parrot's ire by puffing tobacco-smoke into its cage.
Mechanically the outraged bird responded with a shocking blast of
invective, winking rapidly its white parchment-lidded eyes and swinging
excitedly to and fro on its perch.

Hardy admonished the joker--lethargically, but with a certain degree of
malevolence in his weary tones.

"Aw, chack it, Mac!" he drawled. "W'y carn't yer let th' bleedin' bird
alone? Yer know 'e don't like that bein' done t'im. Jes' 'awk t'im
tellin' yer as much!"

McCullough turned on his crutches and leered awhile upon the speaker with
a sort of mournful triumph, than he lifted up his voice in a very fair
imitation of Hardy's own unmusical wail----

"Old soldiers never die, never die, never die,
Old soldiers never die--they simply f