"Not I, old son," said the captain, smiling. "I have a sense of humor--but it doesn't run quite to that." "And here you are all dolled up in white spats! Jack, you have a giant's heart! And worrying about me and your regiment! Jack, I'll do it! I'll transfer. I'll put in my application to-day." "No. I like your suggestion better. Wait till your next leave from France. I have taken a fancy to that idea. You'll come home in six or seven months, and you'll ask me to let you put off your decision until you return again. Of course I shall have to say yes--and, since I am determined to see the Essex badges on you, I'll wait another six or seven months. I am stubborn. Between your indecision and my stubbornness, the chances are that I'll fool the doctors. That would be a joke, if you like!" Dick hobbled round the table and grasped Jack's hand. "Done!" he exclaimed. "I am with you, Jack. We'll play that game for all it is worth. But you didn't seriously believe what the doctors said, did you?" "Yes, until five minutes ago." "Two years ago they said you would be right as wheat in six months; and now they say you will be dead in a year. If they think they're prophets--they are clean off their job. Would they bet money on it? I don't think! One year! Fifty years would have sounded almost as knowing and a good sight more likely." Dick stayed to luncheon, and he remained at the table after Wilson had taken Jack away to lie down. Wilson came back within fifteen minutes and found the Canadian subaltern where he had left him. "Sir, I am anxious about Capt. Jack," he said. "Why do you say that?" asked Dick. "Sir Peter Bayle and two other medical gentlemen of the highest standing warned him this very morning, sir, that he was only one year more for this world; and now he is singing, sir,--a thing he has not done in months,--and a song which runs, sir, with your permission, 'All the boys and girls I chance to meet say, Who's that coming down the street? Why, it's Milly; she's a daisy'--and so on, sir. I fear his wounds have affected his mind, sir." "Wilson, I know that song and approve of it," said Dick. "If Sir Peter Bayle told you, in November, 1916, that you were to die in November, 1917, of wounds received in 1914, should you worry? Nix to that! You would seriously suspect that Sir Peter had his diagnosis of your case mixed up in his high-priced noddle with Buchan's History of the War; and if you are the man I think you are, you, too, would sing." "I thank you, Mr. Richard. You fill my heart with courage, sir," said Wilson.