if you want to, they don't kick about it here. I've tried it but it
tastes rotten as yet. Well! What's doin' in L?" (He referred to the
Division.)

"Hell, yu' mane," corrected Slavin grimly, as he and Yorke proceeded to
divest themselves of their side-arms and unbutton their tunics. "Not
much doin' now, but--later, p'raps. . . ."

"Just got back from Supreme Court," explained Yorke. "Gully! . . . He's
to be 'bumped off' this day-month. . . ."

There came a long, tense silence.

"G---d!" broke out Yorke suddenly, arousing Redmond out of the deep
reverie into which he had sunk on receipt of the news--"the look on that
Eugene Aram face of his when the jury filed in and threw the book at him!
I can't forget it somehow."

"Well! yeh want tu thin!" remarked Slavin bluntly. "Quit ut! . . . d'ju
hear? . . . 'Tis no sort av talk, that, for a sick room. . . ."

And hereafter they all avoided the sinister subject.

Presently McCullough came limping in on his crutches, and ere long that
wily individual succeeded with his customary ingenuity in inveigling the
company into a facetious barrack-room argument. Later they commenced
relating racy stories.

Slavin's deep-set eyes began to twinkle and glow, as he unburdened
himself of a lengthy narrative concerning a furlough he had spent in his
native land many years back, in which Ballymeen Races, a disreputable
"welshing" bookmaker, himself, a jug of whiskey and a blackthorn stick
were all hopelessly mixed in one grand Hibernian tangle.

"Beat ut, he did, over hedge an' bog an' ditch, wid all our money, th'
dhirrty dog. But I cud run tu, in thim days, an' whin I caught up I
shure did play a tchune on th' nob av um!" concluded the sergeant
thoughtfully. In pursuance of his daily round of the wards, Dr. Sampson
presently came swinging in amongst them and saluted the party with his
usual breezy bonhomie. A universal favourite with the members of the
Force his entry was acclaimed with delight. They promptly bade him sit
down and contribute--a la Boccaccio--to their impromptu Decameron, which
request he (sad to relate) complied with.

Amid the roar of laughter that greeted the Doctor's last bon mot, that
gentleman looked ruefully at his watch and prepared to depart.

"Twenty past twelve!" he ejaculated, "and I've got four more patients to
see yet. . . ! Behold the retarding influences of bad company!"

"Say, Doctor," enquired Yorke, "how's Hardy doing? Is he bucki