"Don't be a fool. I let slip in my haste that I don't reckon the thing malignant; and I don't--as yet. But it easily may be; and anyhow you're going to have trouble with it." "I've had trouble enough with it already. But, mortal or not, I ben't goin' to stir out o' Polpier nor out o' this house. . . . Doctor, don't you ask it!" he wound up, as with a cry extorted by pain. "Why, man, what are you afraid of? An operation for _that_, what is it? A whiff of chloroform--and in a week or so--" "But--," interrupted Nicky-Nan sharply, and again recollected himself. "To tell 'ee the truth, Doctor--that's to say, if what passes between patient an' doctor goes no farther--" "That's all right. I'm secret as houses." "To tell 'ee the truth, then, there's a particular reason why I don't want to leave Polpier--not just for the present." Dr Mant stared at him. "You are going to tell me that reason?" But Nicky-Nan shook his head. "I'd rather not say," he confessed lamely. Still Dr Mant stared. "Look here, Nanjivell. You've a beast of a lump on your leg, and I can certify at once that it unfits you for service. You couldn't even crawl up a ladder aboard ship, let alone work a gun. But the people over at Troy have asked the question; and, what is more, it sticks in my head that, two days ago, I got a letter about you--an anonymous letter, suggesting that you were just a malingerer, who nursed an ailment rather than go to the War and take your chance with the others. As a rule I put that kind of letter in the fire, and so I did with this one. As a rule, also, I put it right out of my head. . . . But I've a conscience, in these times; and if I thought you to be nursing a trouble which I pretty well know to be curable, just to avoid your honest share in this War--" Dr Mant paused. "Cuss the War!" said Nicky-Nan wearily. "It looks to me as if everybody was possessed with it." Dr Mant still gazed at him curiously, then whipped about with a sudden "Hey! What's _that?_" _That_ was the voice of Mrs Penhaligon uplifted without, voluble and frenzied: and the Doctor hurried forth, Nicky-Nan hobbling after, to find Mrs Penhaligon waving her arms like a windmill's, and Mrs Polsue, as before the blast of them, flat-backed against the wall of the passage.