"Well, shall I go on for a bit and let you wind up," said I,
unscrewing my pen and taking the pad on my knee.
"Me telling you what to put like?" he asked with a look of pleased
relief.
"That's it. Just say what you would write down yourself."
He cleared his throat.
"DEAR WIFE," he resumed, "the wounds is ... awful, not letting me
write at all. The one in my back is as long as your arm, and they says
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.
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