on him, Gallaher declared, put him to sleep and rob him of his foot for no other reason in the world but to practice and experiment. Let 'em try it on, just let 'em try it on!
The other crips, none of them very serious, had left their cots in the hospital to buzz out like flies at a carrion banquet around the kegs of beer. Gallaher had the dreary place to himself, a lantern swinging from an overhead beam casting a shadowed light as cheerless as his own misery. Dr. Hall sat by him, trying to pacify and assure the unfortunate jerry, whose suffering had kept him sober in spite of the reckless slugs of whisky he had swallowed.
There was no use taking the bottle away from him, for his comrades would give him more; it would be mercy misapplied to attempt the use of the needle. Gallaher's groans and lamentations which had sounded above the noise of the fiddles, had been due, the doctor came to believe after talking with him a while, more to concern over losing his foot than from the pain of his hurt. These men were not sensitive to physical suffering in the degree more kindly nurtured people felt it. The hard order of their lives, the blunting rigor of their toil, made them indifferent to torn flesh and crushed bone. A whimpering man was a subject of ridicule and contempt, a sensitive one, of the deepest scorn. But no man was above moaning, and having a sympathetic chorus to keep him company, at the prospect of losing a limb.
Dr. Hall left Gallaher asleep after more than an hour of friendly and soothing talk. He had won the young man's confidence, all but a little corner of reservation and distrust, by going back to Ireland with him in review of the past, and giving him assurance that his claim
