TRANTO. Dear lady, I've never had neuralgia in my life. Macaroni, eggs, and jelly are my dream. I've always wanted to feel like an invalid. MRS. CULVER. And how did you get on with your Medical Board this morning? TRANTO. How marvellous of you to remember that I had a Medical Board this morning! I believe I've found out your secret, Mrs. Culver--you're undergoing a course of Pelman with those sixty generals and forty admirals. Well, the Medical Board have given me a new complaint. You'll be sorry to hear that I'm deformed. MRS. CULVER. Not deformed! TRANTO. Yes. It appears I'm flat-footed. (_Extending his leg_.) Have I ever told you that I had a dashing military career extending over four months, three of which I spent in hospital for a disease I hadn't got? Then I was discharged as unfit. After a year they raked me in again. Since then I've been boarded five times, and on the unimpeachable authority of various R.A.M.C. Colonels I've been afflicted with valvular disease of the heart, incipient tuberculosis, rickets, varicose veins, diabetes--practically everything, except spotted fever and leprosy. And now flat feet are added to all the rest. Even the Russian collapse and the transfer of the entire German army to the Western Front hasn't raised me higher than C 3. MRS. CULVER. How annoying for you! You might have risen to be a captain by this time. HILDEGARDE (_reflectively_). No doubt, in a home unit. But if he'd gone to the Front he would still have been a second lieutenant. MRS. CULVER. My _dear_! TRANTO. Whereas in fact I'm still one of those able-bodied young shirkers in mufti that patriotic old gentlemen in clubs are always writing to my uncles' papers about. MRS. CULVER. Please! please! (_A slight pause; pulling herself together; cheerfully_.) Let me see, you were going in for Siege Artillery, weren't you? TRANTO. Me! Siege Artillery. My original ambition was trench mortars--not so noisy. MRS. CULVER (_simply_). Oh! Then it must have been somebody else who was talking to me about Siege Artillery. I understand it's very scientific--all angles and degrees and wind-pressures and things. John will soon be eighteen, and his father and I want him to be really useful in the Army. We don't want him to be thrown away. He has brains, and so we are thinking of Siege Artillery for him. (_During this speech_ John _has entered, in evening dress_.) JOHN. Are you on Siege again, mater? The mater's keen on Siege because she's heard somewhere it's the safest thing there is. MRS. CULVER. And if it does happen to be the safest--what then? TRANTO. I suppose you're all for the Flying Corps, John?