Part 14 (1/2)

I've got to look out for accidents, it seems. I never saw anything so careless in my life. You have just got to be careful, Velo! I won't stand for it! This isn't the first time I've nearly come to harm through your _carelessness_, if you want to call it that. I tell you I won't stand for it! Mind, I don't make any accusations; and I don't claim you are to blame for a lot of things that have happened to me lately, but if things don't stop, why, you are going to be sorry!

There won't be any revolvers going off, and your bed won't go down, and your medicine won't get exchanged for poison, like it sometimes happens. I shall just take you out back of the next wire entanglement, and I will give you a _good beating up_, Velo. I remember I used to have to do it when we were about four years old. It used to do you a lot of good, and I suppose all these years since you have had no one to keep you where you belonged. I won't do this, you understand, unless you get careless with guns and things again. You hear, Velo?”

Velo made no reply.

The two boys carefully bearing the stretcher tramped along in silence.

”You hear, Velo?” said Zaidos again. ”Honestly, the more I think of it, the madder I get!”

”You stop your nonsense!” said Velo suddenly over his shoulder. His voice took on a whine. ”What makes you act so, Zaidos? I'm your cousin, and I should think you would be ashamed of the things you say to me, just as if I haven't stuck right beside you every minute, and as if I had not done everything in the world that I possibly could do to help you. You don't treat me well, Zaidos!”

”I do, too,” said Zaidos, stung by this injustice. ”I should think I did; but how do you treat me?”

They reached the entrance to the First Aid Station and gave their unconscious burden into the hands waiting to receive him. The doctor scanned the wound.

”Well, boys,” he said, ”you have saved this man all right.” He turned the bright light on the still, white face. ”My heavens!” he exclaimed.

”Who is it?” asked the nurse.

Velo looked at the face, and spoke before the doctor could reply.

”I know him,” he said. ”His name is John Smith.”

The doctor was working rapidly with restoratives.

”John Smith?” he repeated. ”This is the Prince of Teck's oldest son, and his brother was killed an hour ago. We must keep this fellow alive,” he went on, doggedly. ”First time I met him he was just an hour old. He won't go out of this world yet if _I_ can help it!”

The boys went outside and for a moment sat down on the ground to rest.

”What do you suppose made him do that?” said Velo musingly.

”Do what?” asked Zaidos.

”Why,” said Velo, ”I asked what his name was one night and he said John Smith. I think that old doctor is making a mistake.”

”What does it matter?” said Zaidos. ”He would make just the same effort to save the plain John Smiths as he would to save the princes of the world.”

”Pooh!” said Velo, sneering. ”I guess not! Why should he? He knows a thing or two and you will find it out some day. Why, n.o.body does anything for anybody unless they get paid for it somehow or other!”

”Oh, say,” said Zaidos, getting up and striking one clenched, fist violently into the other, ”I wouldn't have your little bit of a soul for anything on earth! I wouldn't have your mean, little bit of a suspicious, ungenerous mind! I hate to remind a fellow like you of anything so fine, but how about my father? What pay, _pay_, mind you, did he ever get for taking care of _you_? What did he ever get for starting that colony of sick people up on the mountain back of his hunting lodge, with a doctor right there, and a nurse or two paid by father? Do you suppose it made him feel good to see them tottering all over the preserve where he could no longer shoot, for fear of hitting some of the poor wretches?”

”No,” agreed Velo, ”he didn't get a thing out of all that, and I always thought that colony for the sick was the silliest thing I ever heard of. I'll tell you right now when I get hold of things--” he caught himself up quickly. ”I mean, of course, when _you_ get hold of things, if you do as I would do, you will send those people packing back to their slums as fast as they can go. As far as his doing for me, why, I'm one of the family and he sort of had to. It is a duty. Besides, do you suppose it was very much fun sticking around that house, quiet as the grave, _nothing_ going on, _no_ one coming to see your father but old, grey-headed men and women forever fixing up charities?”

”That's all right,” said Zaidos. ”Do you know what I am going to do as soon as I get out of this? I'm going to cut right back to America and study as hard as I can. Then as soon as the war is over, I will come back here and straighten everything up. I will of course keep the t.i.tle. You can't give that away, and I wouldn't want to. I'm proud of my name. It is an honorable one and it has been kept clean by the men before me; but I mean to give Greece everything I can turn into money.

Then I'll take enough to start me, go back to America again, and cut out a career for myself. I'm going to be a doctor and as good a doctor as ever lived if study will do it. _That's_ the monument I mean to give my father and my mother.”

He gave a jerk of the head toward Velo, who sat upright before him.

”How does that strike you, old top?” he asked and climbed down into the First Aid pit.

Left alone, Velo sat thinking. Then he rolled over on his face and beat the earth with his fists. Once more the films flew along, in the moving picture of his mind. He saw the wealth of the Zaidos house--gold, gold! a _stream_ of gold flowing and flowing _away_ from him! He saw the bright lights, the dancing, drinking, all the carousels he had so often dreamed of, slipping out of his grasp. What possible hope could a fellow like himself have of keeping on the right side of anyone like Zaidos? He smiled when he thought what Zaidos would say if he could know or guess what Velo's life had been. What would he do if he ever found out how he had treated Zaidos' long suffering father? And Velo did not try to deceive himself. He knew perfectly well that back there in Saloniki, there were people who would jump at a chance to get even with him, and who would give Zaidos an account of meanness and wrong-doing that would cause him to kick Velo out of the house.