ade aw-ay."

"I don't think!" he concluded _sotto voce_ to Davis, as that individual,
sitting down on the next cot began preparing his wounded arm for the
ministrations of Sister Marthe who had just entered the ward.

"No use!" McCullough rambled on. "I tell yu' th' man's as good as 'gone
up.' Harry. . . . Well! I'll have old Kissiwasti when he pegs out
anyway. I won't half smoke-dry th' old beggar then! I'll teach him to
swear. . . !"

"Eh! . . . 'Ere, wot abaht it?"

The cockney's voice held no trace of lethargy now. The sharply-uttered,
vindictive query was matched by the blazing eyes which were regarding the
farrier-corporal with undisguised hostility.

"Wot abaht wot?" mimicked McCullough, though his heart smote him for the
cold-blooded evasion.

"Wot abaht wot you sed abaht me. . . ?"

"Well, wot abaht it. . . ?"

Speechless with rage, for a moment Hardy gazed into the other's
nonchalant mask-like visage, then, with a gesture of maniacal impotence,
he raised his clenched fists high above his head.

Sister Marthe now judged it high time to intervene. During the enactment
of this little tableau she had stood looking on in mute bewilderment.
Despite her imperfect knowledge of English, and especially the
vernacular, she had a shrewd intuition of what had passed between the two
men.

Seizing McCullough by the arm, despite his protestations of injured
innocence, she gently, but firmly, escorted him out of the ward.

"Vas! vas!--Now you go, M'sieu McCullough! . . . out of ze ward
right-away! . . . Vat you say--vat you do--I do not know, but you 'ave
excite 'im 'orrible! . . . Oh, _pardonnez-moi_, Docteur!" she
ejaculated, as she bumped into that gentleman in the corridor.

"Hullo!" said the latter inquiringly, as he remarked the little nurse's
flushed, angry face. "What's up, Sister Marthe?"

For answer, that irate lady pointed accusingly to McCullough. That
worthy, his questionable experiment accomplished, was retreating up the
corridor as fast as his crutches could carry him.

"First, Docteur," began the nurse indignantly, "'e blow smoke in ze eye
of ze parrot, then 'e turn roun' to _pauvre_ M'sieu 'Ardy an' 'e
sing--oh, I 'ave not ze English, but 'e _blague_ 'im so--

"_Vieux soldats ne meurent! jamais! jamais! jamais!
Vieux soldats ne meurent jamais!--ils simplement passent!_"

"An' M'sieu 'Ardy 'e say: 'Vat about?' an' then 'e raise 'is two 'ands e
Ciel--so! an' 'e tell Le Bon Die