good deal. There's not a flaw in your whole
constitution."

He put away his stethoscope and smiled at Doggie, who regarded him
blankly as the pronouncer of a doom. He went on to prescribe a course
of physical exercises, so many miles a day walking, such and such
back-breaking and contortional performances in his bathroom; if
possible, a skilfully graduated career in a gymnasium, but his words
fell on the ears of a Doggie in a dream; and when he had ended, Doggie
said:

"I'm afraid, Doctor, you'll have to write all that out for me."

"With pleasure," smiled the doctor, and gripped him by the hand. And
seeing Doggie wince, he said heartily: "Ah! I'll soon set that right
for you. I'll get you something--an india-rubber contrivance to
practise with for half an hour a day, and you'll develop a hand like a
gorilla's."

Dr. Murdoch grinned his way, in his little car, to his next patient.
Here was this young slacker, coddled from birth, absolutely
horse-strong and utterly confounded at being told so. He grinned and
chuckled so much that he nearly killed his most valuable old lady
patient, who was crossing the High Street.

But Doggie crept out of bed and put on a violet dressing-gown that
clashed horribly with his pink pyjamas, and wandered like a man in a
nightmare to his breakfast. But he could not eat. He swallowed a cup
of coffee and sought refuge in his own room. He was frightened.
Horribly frightened, caught in a net from which there was no
escape--not the tiniest break of a mesh. He had given his word--and in
justice to Doggie, be it said that he held his word sacred--he had
given his word to join the Army if he should be passed by Murdoch. He
had been passed--more than passed. He would have to join. He would
have to fight. He would have to live in a muddy trench, sleep in mud,
eat in mud, plough through mud, in the midst of falling shells and
other instruments of death. And he would be an officer, with all kinds
of strange and vulgar men under him, men like Chipmunk, for instance,
whom he would never understand. He was almost physically sick with
apprehension. He realized that he had never commanded a man in his
life. He had been mortally afraid of Briggins, his late chauffeur. He
had heard that men at the front lived on some solid horror called
bully-beef dug out of tins, and some liquid horror called cocoa, also
drunk out of tins; that men kept on their clothes, even their boots,
for weeks at a time; that rats