“Yes, I promise.  Now come in here and get off some of your clothes.”

“Doctor, it’s pretty tough on me to get in and out of my clothes.”

“I’ll help you.  Now tell me what the Germans did to you.”

Lane laughed grimly.  “Doctor, do you remember I was in your Sunday School class?”

“Yes, I remember that.  What’s it got to do with Germans?”

“Nothing.  It struck me funny, that’s all....  Well, to get it over.  I was injured several times at the training camp.”

“Anything serious?”

“No, I guess not.  Anyway I forgot about them. Doctor, I was shot four times, once clear through.  I’ll show you.  Got a bad bayonet jab that doesn’t seem to heal well.  Then I had a dose of both gases—­chlorine and mustard—­and both all but killed me.  Last I’ve a weak place in my spine.  There’s a vertebra that slips out of place occasionally.  The least movement may do it.  I can’t guard against it.  The last time it slipped out I was washing my teeth.  I’m in mortal dread of this.  For it twists me out of shape and hurts horribly.  I’m afraid it’ll give me paralysis.”

“Humph!  It would.  But it can be fixed....  So that’s all they did to you?”

Underneath the dry humor of the little doctor, Lane thought he detected something akin to anger.

“Yes, that’s all they did to my body,” replied Lane.

Doctor Bronson, during a careful and thorough examination of Lane’s heart, lungs, blood pressure, and abdominal region, did not speak once.  But when he turned him over, to see and feel the hole in Lane’s back, he exclaimed:  “My God, boy, what made this—­a shell?  I can put my fist in it.”

“That’s the bayonet jab.”

Doctor Bronson cursed in a most undignified and unprofessional manner.  Then without further comment he went on and completed the examination.

“That’ll do,” he said, and lent a hand while Lane put on his clothes.  It was then he noticed Lane’s medal.

“Ha!  The Croix de Guerre!...  Daren, I was a friend of your father’s.  I know how that medal would have made him feel.  Tell me what you did to get it?”

“Nothing much,” replied Lane, stirred.  “It was in the Argonne, when we took to open fighting.  In fact I got most of my hurts there....  I carried a badly wounded French officer back off the field.  He was a heavy man.  That’s where I injured my spine.  I had to run with him.  And worse luck, he was dead when I got him back.  But I didn’t know that.”

“So the French decorated you, hey?” asked the doctor, leaning back with hands on hips, and keenly eyeing Lane.

“Yes.”

“Why did not the American Army give you equal honor?”

“Well, for one thing it was never reported.  And besides, it wasn’t anything any other fellow wouldn’t do.”

Doctor Bronson dropped his head and paced to and fro.  Then the door-bell rang in the reception room.