The doctor looked and saw feverish blue lamps alight in a pale face, and
soothingly said he did not mind. "Your shoulder, no one else's, isn't
it?" he admitted. "Now you'd better go to sleep; you'll be all right
directly, if you're careful not to move it or lie on it or anything."

Peter said he would be careful. He didn't at all want to move it or lie
on it or anything. He lay and had waking visions of the popping rabbits.
But they might pop as they liked; Peter hid a better thing in his inmost
soul. Urquhart had said, "Sorry to hurt you, Margerison. You were jolly
sporting, though." In the night it seemed incredible that Urquhart had
stooped from Valhalla thus far; that Urquhart had pulled in his arm with
his own hands and called him sporting to his face. The words, and the
echo of the soft, pleasant, casual voice, with its unemphasised
intonations, spread lifting wings for him, and bore him above the aching
pain that stayed with him through the night.

Next morning, when Peter was wishing that the crumbs of breakfast that
got between one's back and one's pyjamas were less sharp-cornered, and
wondering why a dislocated shoulder should give one an aching bar of pain
across the forehead, and feeling very sad because a letter from home had
just informed him that his favourite guinea-pig had been trodden on by
the gardener, Urquhart came to see him.

Urquhart said, "Hullo, Margerison. How are you this morning?" and Peter
said he was very nearly all right now, thanks very much. He added,
"Thanks awfully, Urquhart, for putting it in, and seeing after me and
everything."

"Oh, that's all right." Urquhart's smile had the same pleasant quality as
his voice. He had never smiled at Peter before. Peter lay and looked at