“The--the things in Butcher’s Row. They kept on comin’ over me. You’ve seen me like this before, sir.” “But I knew that it was a lie. You’d no more got stiffs on the brain then, than you have now. You’ve got something, but you’re hiding it.” “’Ow do _you_ know, Doctor?” Strangwick whimpered. “D’you remember what you said to me, when Dearlove and Billings were holding you down that evening?” “About the things in Butcher’s Row?” “Oh, no! You spun me a lot of stuff about corpses creaking; but you let yourself go in the middle of it--when you pushed that telegram at me. What did you mean, f’rinstance, by asking what advantage it was for you to fight beasts of officers if the dead didn’t rise?” “Did I say ‘Beasts of Officers’?” “You did. It’s out of the Burial Service.” “I suppose, then, I must have heard it. As a matter of fact, I ’ave.” Strangwick shuddered extravagantly. “Probably. And there’s another thing--that hymn you were shouting till I put you under. It was something about Mercy and Love. ’Remember it?” “I’ll try,” said the boy obediently, and began to paraphrase, as nearly as possible thus: “‘Whatever a man may say in his heart unto the Lord, yea verily I say unto you--Gawd hath shown man, again and again, marvellous mercy an’--an’ somethin’ or other love.’” He screwed up his eyes and shook. “Now where did you get _that_ from?” Keede insisted. “From Godsoe--on the twenty-first Jan.... ’Ow could _I_ tell what ’e meant to do?” he burst out in a high, unnatural key--“Any more than I knew _she_ was dead.” “Who was dead?” said Keede. “Me Auntie Armine.” “The one the telegram came to you about, at Sampoux, that you wanted me to explain--the one that you were talking of in the passage out here just now when you began: ‘O Auntie,’ and changed it to ‘O Gawd,’ when I collared you?” “That’s her! I haven’t a chance with you, Doctor. _I_ didn’t know there was anything wrong with those braziers. How could I? We’re always usin’ ’em. Honest to God, I thought at first go-off he might wish to warm himself before the leaf-train. I--I didn’t know Uncle John meant to start--’ouse-keepin’.” He laughed horribly, and then the dry tears came. Keede waited for them to pass in sobs and hiccoughs before he continued, “Why? Was Godsoe your Uncle?” “No,” said Strangwick, his head between his hands. “Only we’d known him ever since we were born. Dad ’ad known him before that. He lived almost next street to us. Him an’ Dad an’ Ma an’--an’ the rest had always been friends. So we called him Uncle--like children do.” “What sort of man was he?” “One o’ _the_ best, sir. ’Pensioned Sergeant with a little money left him--quite independent--and very superior. They had a sittin’-room full o’ Indian curios that him and his wife used to let sister an’ me see when we’d been good.” “Wasn’t he rather old to join up?”