"That's a funny looking wound,--looks like a burn," said Lawrence.

"You're damned right it's a burn," said Scotty, "it was the shell that
burned me as it grazed my leg."

The probable reason, I thought, why the shell could graze the inside of
one of his legs without injury to the other was because the fighter was
blessed with a pair of bow-legs that couldn't have stopped the
proverbial pig in the proverbial alley. In addition to this decided
detraction from his manly beauty, he was short, squatty, thick-necked, a
nose of the variety commonly known as a stub, and a couple of little
eyes that had a constant twinkle, half-shrewd and half-humorous, the
whole surmounted with a shock of shaggy red hair. But these detractions
from his beauty did not in the least lessen our admiration for his
personal bravery; he was in our eyes a first-class fighting man; he had
proven it by his work at Mons and had the scar to show for it.

"But how did you come to get into a Canadian unit?" asked another.

"Well, you see, after I was wounded in the leg and got my honorable
discharge, as soon as I was well, I wanted to do my bit again, and
knowing that you laddies get bigger pay than in the British army, I
thought I would kill two birds wi' the one stone,--get more money and
get into the game again. So I ups and goes to the Colonel and says I,
'Colonel, I'd like to get into the game again.' 'Well,' says he, 'I hae
na room for any more men in my command, but I do want a gude cook,' an'
it just happened that I was a cook by trade, and a gude one too, and
told him so, and says he, 'Well, you're just the man I want,' and he
signed me up there and then, and here I am."