it will heal quicker than the one in my knee, which has two tubes in
which they squirts strong-smelling stuff through. The foot is a pretty
sight, as big as half a melon, and I doubts ever being able to put it
to the ground again, though they says I shall. I gets very stiff at
nights and the pain sometimes is cruel, but they gives me a prick with
the morphia needle then which makes me dream something beautiful...."

There was a pause while he indulged in a smiling reverie.

"Perhaps we have said enough about your pains," I ventured, when,
returning from his visions, he puckered his brows in fresh thought.
"Your wife might be frightened if--"

"Not her," he interrupted proudly. "She's a rare good nurse herself,
and it would take more than that to turn _her_ up."

I shook my pen; he shifted his head a little and continued:--

"DEAR WIFE,--If you could see my shoulder dressed of a morning you
would laugh. They cuts out little pieces of lint like a picture puzzle
to fit the places, and I've got a regular map of Blighty all down my
arm; but that's not so bad as my back, which I cannot see and which
the wound is as long--"

I blotted the sheet and turned over, and Private Brown eyed the space
left for further cheerful communications.

"Shall I leave this for you to finish?" I suggested, thinking of
tender messages difficult to dictate. "Your fingers may be better
after tea, or perhaps to-morrow morning."