“’Course you are.” Keede opened a small cupboard which I had seen called upon before, mixed sal volatile and water in a graduated glass, and, as Strangwick drank, pushed him gently on to an old sofa. “There,” he went on. “It’s nothing to write home about. I’ve seen you ten times worse. I expect our talk has brought things back.” He hooked up a chair behind him with one foot, held the patient’s hands in his own, and sat down. The chair creaked. “Don’t!” Strangwick squealed. “I can’t stand it! There’s nothing on earth creaks like they do! And--and when it thaws we--we’ve got to slap ’em back with a spa-ade! ’Remember those Frenchmen’s little boots under the duck-boards?... What’ll I do? What’ll I do about it?” Some one knocked at the door, to know if all were well. “Oh, quite, thanks!” said Keede over his shoulder. “But I shall need this room awhile. Draw the curtains, please.” We heard the rings of the hangings that drape the passage from Lodge to Banquet Room click along their poles, and what sound there had been, of feet and voices, was shut off. Strangwick, retching impotently, complained of the frozen dead who creak in the frost. “He’s playing up still,” Keede whispered. “_That’s_ not his real trouble--any more than ’twas last time.” “But surely,” I replied, “men get those things on the brain pretty badly. ’Remember in October----” “This chap hasn’t, though. I wonder what’s really helling him. What are you thinking of?” said Keede peremptorily. “French End an’ Butcher’s Row,” Strangwick muttered. “Yes, there were a few there. But, suppose we face Bogey instead of giving him best every time.” Keede turned towards me with a hint in his eye that I was to play up to his leads. “What was the trouble with French End?” I opened at a venture. “It was a bit by Sampoux, that we had taken over from the French. They’re tough, but you wouldn’t call ’em tidy as a nation. They had faced both sides of it with dead to keep the mud back. All those trenches were like gruel in a thaw. Our people had to do the same sort of thing--elsewhere; but Butcher’s Row in French End was the--er--show-piece. Luckily, we pinched a salient from Jerry just then, an’ straightened things out--so we didn’t need to use the Row after November. You remember, Strangwick?” “My God, yes! When the duckboard-slats were missin’ you’d tread on ’em, an’ they’d creak.” “They’re bound to. Like leather,” said Keede. “It gets on one’s nerves a bit, but----” “Nerves? It’s real! It’s real!” Strangwick gulped. “But at your time of life, it’ll all fall behind you in a year or so. I’ll give you another sip of--paregoric, an’ we’ll face it quietly. Shall we?” Keede opened his cupboard again and administered a carefully dropped dark dose of something that was not sal volatile. “This’ll settle you in a few minutes,” he explained. “Lie still, an’ don’t talk unless you feel like it.” He faced me, fingering his beard.