nd made up a bed for him there.
Bill slept for three days solid and was about again in a week."

"Very fortunate," murmured the _Gazette_.

"So that time, you see, the doctors was done. But that don't often
happen. There was a doctor I knew out there, name of Gordon. Young
fellow he was, too, and very keen; seemed to think the War was started
specially to give him surgical practice, and he loved his lancets more
than his mother. He used to welcome cases with open arms, so to speak,
do his very best to heal 'em quick, and weep when he succeeded. Well, he
happened to be in our trench one day, showing our Sub a new case of
knives, when Charlie Black was carried in on a stretcher in an awful
mess.

"'I must operate at once to save your life,' he says.

"Charlie smiled as best he could and said he was agreeable.

"'But there's no anaesthetic here,' he says, 'and I can't do it without.
Couldn't you do a faint for me?'

"Charlie says he's sorry, but he's never practised fetching a faint at
will, like a woman can.

"'Well, then,' he says, 'you'll have to be stunned.' And he fetches a
small sandbag and gives it to the stretcher-bearer.

"'Chap here,' he explains to Charlie, 'will count up slowly, and when he
gets to fifty he'll hit you on the head with the sandbag and knock you
out.'

"Charlie grins, and the stretcher-bearer begins to count. When he gets
to ten he rolls up his sleeves; when he gets to twenty he takes a good
grip of the sandbag; at thirty he rolls his eyes and sticks out his jaw;
at forty, he lifts the bag over his shoulder and draws one foot back,
Charlie watching him all the time. 'For-ty-six,' he says slowly, 'for-ty
seven, for-ty-eight, for-ty-nine,' and then----"

"You're not going to tell me that he really----"

"No, he didn't," said Truthful James. "Charlie fainted."

"That was their intention, I presume?"

"Your presumption is correct, Sir. The doctor finished the job before
Charlie come to again. Smart, wasn't it?"

"Very smart indeed."

"But that's nothing. Nothing at all to what he could do. He once cut a
fellow open, took out his liver, extracted twenty-three shrapnel bullets
from it, bounced it on the floor to see it was all right, and put it
back, all inside of three minutes. And the fellow what owns the liver
hasn't had a to-morrow morning head-ache once since."

"He must be a very clever doctor," suggested the other, to fill in a
pause.

"Talking of doctors," James went on, "