Part 17 (1/2)

Alraph 'ere” But he did not get up at once, and we turned to the fountain-pens ”Any nib,” he said, ”crossed ever so, _I_ could ”

Now I think of it, fountain-pen shops always _are_ stocktaking They do it all down the Strand, with big red labels across the front

He rose suddenly and crossed to his locker to look for her photograph, returning after a few minutes with a bundle of little cardboards The first I turned over was that of a pretty fair-haired girl ”Is that her?” I asked ”She's pretty!” ”That's 'er young sister,” he answered I turned over the rest, and he pointed out his fairl

There are some men who are not taken in by a bit of fair hair

One knohat these cheap photographs are, how they distort and blacken The girl who looked at me from this one appeared to be a monster

She had an enoralvanized iron drawn across her forehead for hair

”Ther's just theot a feller yet”

I praised his girl to Pinker, and praised Pinker to hter than a man Makes yer punctual”

”So she won't wait for you when you are late?”

”Not a minute over time,” he said with pride ”I used to be a terror when I first knew 'er; kep' 'er waitin' abaht She soon cured me, did F

Steel”

”You are a funny little bird, Pinker,” said the Sister, passing

”Lil bird, am I?” He tucked his cardboards carefully into his locker and followed her up the ward firing repartee

I sewedI should like to ask the huge and terrible girl about her cure

Monk is the ugliest man I have ever seen He has a squint and a leer, his ht, combed hair meets his eyebrows--or rather, his left eyebrow, since that one is raised by a cut He has the expression of a cut-throat, and yet he is quite young, good-te at a woollen belt Pinker said: ”Workin' that for yer girl? You got a girl, Monk?”

Monk squinted sidelong at Pinker and rubbed his hands together like a large ape

”'E ain't got no girl,” shrilled Pinker ”Monk ain't got no girl You don' knohat a girl is, do yer, Monk?”

Although they do much more to help each other than I ever saw done in the officers' ward, yet one is always saying things that I findthe other hasn't heard

In the next bed to Monk lies Gayner, six foot two, of the Expeditionary Force Wounded at Mons, he was brought holand, and since then he has , sullen hts or cards or speak to his neighbour He sits up, attentive, while the ulcers on his leg are being dressed, but if one asks hi of the history of his wound his tone holds such a volume of bitterness and exasperation that one feels that at any ht cease to hold

”ever since Mons, these ulcers, on and off?”

”Yes”