"Doctor," said the colonel, "you understand treatment by suggestion, don’t you? I wish you would calm down your hospital sergeant a bit. He is so nervous that he begins to tremble and becomes perfectly speechless if I speak to him. I really believe I terrify him. See what you can do, like a good fellow." Next morning, Dr. O’Grady sent for Sergeant Freshwater to his tent and talked kindly to him. Freshwater, a lean Albino with heavy stupid eyes, owned that he lost his head whenever the colonel came near him. "Well, my friend," said the doctor, "we will cure you of that in five minutes. Sit down there." He made some passes to create an atmosphere favourable to suggestion, then began: "You are not afraid of the colonel, you know he is a man just like you and me—you rather like talking to him. Look closely at his face when he speaks to you. His moustache is always cut a little too short on the left side." The doctor went on like this for a quarter of an hour describing the rugged features and funny ways of the colonel, then sent away the sergeant, telling him that he was cured, and not to forget it the first time he met his commanding officer. A few hours later, Colonel Bramble, going out for his lunch, met the hospital sergeant on one of the duck-boards used for going through the camp. Freshwater stepped on one side, saluted, and began to laugh silently. "Whatever is the matter, sergeant?" said the astonished colonel. "Oh, sir," replied Freshwater in fits of laughter, "I cannot help laughing when I look at you, you have such a funny face!" The colonel, in a few well-chosen words, destroyed the doctor’s learned suggestions for ever; then, establishing himself in front of the tinned lobster, he complimented O’Grady on his miraculous cure. "I have never seen," said the padre, "any creatures so stupid, so wicked, so rotten, or so dense as English doctors." "Medicine is a very old joke," said Major Parker, "but it still goes on. Now, doctor, tell the truth for once: what do you know more than we do about illnesses and their remedies?" "That’s right," said the padre, "attack his religion; he often attacks mine." "When I was in India," said the colonel, "an old army doctor gave me for every malady the remedy which just suited me. For palpitations of the heart, a large glass of brandy; for insomnia, three or four glasses of port after dinner; for stomachic disorders, a bottle of dry champagne at each meal. And, as long as one was feeling well, whisky and soda." "Excellent, sir," said Aurelle. "Before the War I drank nothing but water and I was always ill; since I have been with you I have adopted whisky and I feel much better." "Yes, you look it," said the colonel. "I had a friend, Major Fetherstonhaugh, who began to have fits of dizziness when he was about forty; he went to see a doctor who thought it was the whisky and advised him to drink milk for a time; well, in ten days he was dead."