Andrews lay, comfortable in his cot, looking into the ward out of another world. He felt no connection with the talk about him, with the men who lay silent or tossed about groaning in the rows of narrow cots that filled the Renaissance hall. In the yellow glow of the electric lights, looking beyond the orderly's twisted face and narrow head, he could see very faintly, where the beams of the ceiling sprung from the wall, a row of half-obliterated shields supported by figures carved out of the grey stone of the wall, handed satyrs with horns and goats' beards and deep-set eyes, little squat figures of warriors and townsmen in square hats with swords between their bent knees, naked limbs twined in scrolls of spiked acanthus leaves, all seen very faintly, so that when the electric lights swung back and forth in the wind made by the orderly's hurried passing, they all seemed to wink and wriggle in shadowy mockery of the rows of prostrate bodies in the room beneath them. Yet they were familiar, friendly to Andrews. He kept feeling a half-formulated desire to be up there too, crowded under a beam, grimacing through heavy wreaths of pomegranates and acanthus leaves, the incarnation of old rich lusts, of clear fires that had sunk to dust ages since. He felt at home in that spacious hall, built for wide gestures and stately steps, in which all the little routine of the army seemed unreal, and the wounded men discarded automatons, broken toys laid away in rows. Andrews was snatched out of his thoughts. Applebaum was speaking to him; he turned his head. “How d'you loike it bein' wounded, buddy?” “Fine.” “Foine, I should think it was.... Better than doin' squads right all day.” “Where did you get yours?” “Ain't got only one arm now.... I don't give a damn.... I've driven my last fare, that's all.” “How d'you mean?” “I used to drive a taxi.” “That's a pretty good job, isn't it?” “You bet, big money in it, if yer in right.” “So you used to be a taxi-driver, did you?” broke in the orderly. “That's a fine job.... When I was in the Providence Hospital half the fractures was caused by taxis. We had a little girl of six in the children's ward had her feet cut clean off at the ankles by a taxi. Pretty yellow hair she had, too. Gangrene.... Only lasted a day.... Well, I'm going off, I guess you guys wish you was going to be where I'm goin' to be tonight.... That's one thing you guys are lucky in, don't have to worry about propho.” The orderly wrinkled his face up and winked elaborately. “Say, will you do something for me?” asked Andrews. “Sure, if it ain't no trouble.” “Will you buy me a book?” “Ain't ye got enough with all the books at the 'Y'?” “No.... This is a special book,” said Andrews smiling, “a French book.” “A French book, is it? Well, I'll see what I can do. What's it called?” “By Flaubert.... Look, if you've got a piece of paper and a pencil, I'll write it down.” Andrews scrawled the title on the back of an order slip. “There.”