The doctor felt the place he had pointed out, and Piatte winced as though it caused him intense pain. "Have you lifted any heavy load lately?" good-naturedly said the doctor. "Oh, yes, sir," innocently replied Piatte; "and you don't know, sir, what I've been suffering for these last four days. I didn't like to come to the medical visit, because I thought it would pass off; but really to-day, sir, it's more than I can bear." The doctor fully believed him, and exempted him from all duty for two days. When Piatte walked out he winked at me. "Well, old chap," he whispered, "ain't that grand? We'll have a jolly good drunk to-day and to-morrow with yesterday's oof." If only the doctor had seen him wrestling the previous night, Piatte would not have fared so well. The medical visit over, the Surgeon-major called me into his private office. "So," he said, "you've fallen out with your Sergeant-major. He sent me a note to warn me that you have been punished with eight days' _Salle de Police_, and he says that you are only shamming." I told the doctor what had happened, and explained that I was really feeling ill after the terrible night I had gone through. "I can quite believe you," replied the doctor, "but I don't like to exempt you altogether from duty, as I do not want to show too openly the interest I take in you. I shall exempt you from 'boots' for a couple of days, however, so that you will be excused from mounted and dismounted drill, gymnastics, and _voltige_; in two days' time return here, and I will then exempt you from duty for two days, so that you will be able to have a good long rest in bed. If I don't come to pass a medical visit on that day I shall mention your case to my colleague, Surgeon-major Lesage, and he will do what I ask him." I returned to the room, and as I was free until 11 o'clock, when I should have to go to the schoolroom, I hurried to my bed in order to get a refreshing sleep. De Lanoy soon turned up and asked me how I was. I told him I was dead beat, but he remarked that I had made a blunder in going to the medical visit. "It has," he said, "absolutely put the Sergeant-major's back up against you; he said to me just now that you are nothing but a lazy brute without twopennyworth of pluck." Although this rather upset me, I felt so exhausted that I dropped asleep before I could think the matter over. At 11 o'clock I turned up in the schoolroom, and Sergeant Legros ordered me to come and speak to him. "So, _Monsieur_ Decle," he sarcastically remarked, "you've made the acquaintance of the _Boite_.[19] How do you like it?" "Not at all, Sergeant," I answered. "And therefore," he went on, "you thought that you would like a little rest to-day, didn't you?" "No, Sergeant," I said, "I assure you I'm really ill."