case I do not know. It is my wish
to fight for France, but as for the stirrup or Jeanne--_sais pas_."
Another shrug. With that he was making oration, his light eyes flashing,
his dark face working with feeling, about the bitterness of being a
cripple, and unable to go into the army.

"It is not _comme il faut_, M'sieur le Docteur, that a man whose very
grandfather fought for Jeanne should fail France now in her need.
Jeanne, one knows, was the saviour of France. Is it not?" I agreed. "It
is my inheritance, therefore, to fight as my ancient grandfather
fought." I looked at the lame boy, not knowing the repartee. He began
again. "Also I am the only one of the family proper to go, except
Adolphe, who is not very proper, having had a tree to fall on the lungs
and leave him liable to fits; and also Jacques and Louis are too young,
and Jean Baptiste he is blind of one eye, God knows. So it is I who
fail! I fail! Jesus Christ! To stay at home like a coward when France
needs men!"

"But you are Canadian, Philippe. Your people have been here two hundred
years."

"M'sieur, I am of France. I belong there with the fighting men." His
look was a flame, and suddenly I know why he was firing off hot shot at
me. I am a surgeon.

"What's the matter with your leg?" I asked.

The brilliant eyes flashed. "Ah!" he brought out, "One hoped--If M'sieur
le Docteur would but see. I may be cured. To be straight--to march!" He
was trembling.

Later, in the shifting sunshine at the camp door, with the odors of
hemlocks and balsams about us, the lake rippling below, I had an
examination. I found that the lad's lameness was a trouble to be cured
easily by an operation. I hesitated. Was it my affair to root this
youngster out of safety and send him to death in the _debacle_ over
there? Yet what right had I to set limits? He wanted to offer his life;
how could I know what I might be blocking if I withheld the cure? My job
was to give strength to all I could reach.

"Philippe," I said, "if you'll come to New York next month I'll set you
up with a good leg."

In September, 1915, Dick and I came up for our yearly trip, but Philippe
was not with us. Philippe, after drilling at Valcartier, was drilling
in England. I had lurid post cards off and on; after a while I knew that
he was "somewhere in France." A grim gray card came with no post-mark,
no writing but the address and Philippe's labored signature; for the
rest there were printed sentences: "