rity of his native Denver to answer the country's call, to go to
France at great personal risk to his health--a risk only appreciated by
those who know him well. It was Major Powers who operated upon the
compound fracture in my skull that morning.

My mental note-taking continued as the anesthetist worked over me with
the ether. As I began breathing the fumes I remember that my senses were
keenly making observations on every sensation I experienced. The thought
even went through my mind that it would be rather an unusual thing to
report completely the impressions of coma. This suggestion became a
determination and I became keyed up to everything going on about me.

The conversation of the young doctor who was administering the
anesthetic interested me unusually. He was very busy and business-like
and although I considered myself an important and most interested party
in the entire proceedings, his conversation ignored me entirely. He not
only did not talk to me, but he was not even talking about me. As he
continued to apply the ether, he kept up a running fire of entirely
extraneous remarks with some other person near the table. I did not
appreciate then, as I do now, that I was only one of very, very many
that he had anesthetised that morning and the night before, but at the
time his seeming lack of all interest in me as me, piqued me
considerably.

"Are you feeling my pulse?" I said. I could not feel his hand on either
of my wrists, but I asked the question principally to inject myself into
the conversation in some way or other, preferably in some way that would
call him to account, as I had by this time aroused within me a keen and
healthy dislike for this busy little worker whom I could not see but who
stood over me and carried on conversations with other people to my utter
and complete exclusion. And all the time he was engaged in feeding me
the fumes that I knew would soon steal away my senses.

"Now, never you mind about your pulse," he replied somewhat peevishly.
"I'm taking care of this." It seemed to me from the tone of his voice
that he implied I was talking about something that was none of my
business and I had the distinct conviction that if the proceedings were
anybody's business, they certainly were mine.

"You will pardon me for manifesting a mild interest in what you are
doing to me," I said, "but you see I know that something is going to be
done to my right eye and inasmuch as that is the only eye