‘I am sorry about your shoulder,’ he said at last. ‘Let me send for the doctor.’ ‘Not in the least,’ said I. ‘It is a trifle. I am quite used to it. It does not trouble me in the smallest. At any rate, I don’t believe in doctors.’ ‘All right,’ said he, and sat and smoked a good while in a silence which I would have given anything to break. ‘Well,’ he began presently, ‘I believe there is nothing left for me to learn. I presume I may say that I know all.’ ‘About what?’ said I boldly. ‘About Goguelat,’ said he. ‘I beg your pardon. I cannot conceive,’ said I. ‘Oh,’ says the major, ‘the man fell in a duel, and by your hand! I am not an infant.’ ‘By no means,’ said I. ‘But you seem to me to be a good deal of a theorist.’ ‘Shall we test it?’ he asked. ‘The doctor is close by. If there is not an open wound on your shoulder, I am wrong. If there is—’ He waved his hand. ‘But I advise you to think twice. There is a deuce of a nasty drawback to the experiment—that what might have remained private between us two becomes public property.’ ‘Oh, well!’ said I, with a laugh, ‘anything rather than a doctor! I cannot bear the breed.’ His last words had a good deal relieved me, but I was still far from comfortable. Major Chevenix smoked awhile, looking now at his cigar ash, now at me. ‘I’m a soldier myself,’ he says presently, ‘and I’ve been out in my time and hit my man. I don’t want to run any one into a corner for an affair that was at all necessary or correct. At the same time, I want to know that much, and I’ll take your word of honour for it. Otherwise, I shall be very sorry, but the doctor must be called in.’ ‘I neither admit anything nor deny anything,’ I returned. ‘But if this form of words will suffice you, here is what I say: I give you my parole, as a gentleman and a soldier, there has nothing taken place amongst us prisoners that was not honourable as the day.’ ‘All right,’ says he. ‘That was all I wanted. You can go now, Champdivers.’ And as I was going out he added, with a laugh: ‘By the bye, I ought to apologise: I had no idea I was applying the torture!’ The same afternoon the doctor came into the courtyard with a piece of paper in his hand. He seemed hot and angry, and had certainly no mind to be polite. ‘Here!’ he cried. ‘Which of you fellows knows any English? Oh!’—spying me—‘there you are, what’s your name! _You’ll_ do. Tell these fellows that the other fellow’s dying. He’s booked; no use talking; I expect he’ll go by evening. And tell them I don’t envy the feelings of the fellow who spiked him. Tell them that first.’ I did so.