A deaf old man takes the vacant seat in front of the doctor. The glove-stretcher darts into his ear. A question is asked. The old man gibbers in reply. Glove-stretcher darts into the other ear. Another question. More gibbering. Both his ears are soundly boxed, and he is sent away. The next is a goitre case, too unpleasant for description. Suddenly the attendants come forward, and pull off all his clothes. The doctor removes the reflector from his right eye, and stares for a moment at the ghastly skinny shape with a sack hanging from its throat. Then he dictates a prescription to one of the attendants, and seizes the next soldier. Prescription and clothes are thrown at the naked man, who walks out shivering, holding his apparel in his arms. Meanwhile another victim is already trembling on the stool. This man trembles so violently that he falls down in a faint. The attendants cuff him back to consciousness. Painfully he gets up and tries to face the instrument again. But as the glove-stretcher is being inserted into his nostril, he turns the colour of weak tea and again silently collapses. The doctor does not give him a second look. One of the attendants drags his limp body to a corner, while another patient takes the seat in front of the doctor. After a few more cases have been examined, the two attendants return to the unconscious man in the corner, drag him back to the doctor and hold his lolling head to the light, while the glove-stretcher does its work. Then he is pulled away, like a dummy from an arena, to the door of the consulting room, where (and here I confess I expected a scene) a woman awaited him. But she seemed to consider it all in the day's work. Perhaps poor Willie was subject to fainting fits. . . . I knew I would not faint, but I cannot say I took my turn on that seat with a light heart. The surgeon was alarmingly sudden, and already the room looked like a shambles. * * * * * To my relief, he used a new glove-stretcher. "Slightly deflected septum," he pronounced, and his diagnosis was later confirmed in London. "I hurt my nose boxing," I explained conversationally, "and cannot now breathe through it. I would like to stay----" "Can't stay here." he said instantly and incisively; "no time to deal with your case." "But I can't breathe through my nose." "Breathe through your mouth," he suggested kindly, but a little coldly. Now, it is impossible to "wangle" a man who sits over you with a reflecting mirror screwed into his right eye. I vanished with suitable thanks. Robin had better luck with his ear. He could have stayed on in hospital and would very likely have been invalided back to England eventually. But he absolutely refused to exchange the comfortable security of a bodily affliction for the vivider joys of escape. In spite of my advice to stay in hospital, he decided, to my great delight, that we would try our luck together. All hope of remaining in hospital was now at an end.