Trooper Tales — page 192: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

178 The Aberration of Private Brown. less. I was sitting near by, looking pained, and my poor friend was saying: “My brother’s wife will be here day after next. Got a telephone this morning. She doesn’t know I was all cut up in the war (there, that telephone is ringing again). She said, ‘Brown, you’re looking bad.’ . . . Tell that gentleman at the door that my life was despaired of last night, but that I am now out of danger.” After the sergeant had gone to make the troop-com- mander acquainted with the affair, Brown whispered to me: “Say, if you think this is easy, just try it for awhile!” That night the patient felt the necessity of becoming more active in the capacity of a wild man. The burden of his song—and he hasn’t a fortune in his voice—was, “©, beer in the little black bottle, black bottle.” It de- veloped in those hours of night that I was the only person who had the slightest control over Brown. It was a touching proof of his friendship for me because I was re- leased from all calls and troop duty and turned into a sort of keeper for my poor friend. But the strain was telling sadly upon him. For some unaccountable reason the troop commander had not yet reported the matter to the physician, and Brown had only been allowed the luxury of a lucid interval twice in four days. When I was alone with him, he said: “Here I am as nutty and as noisy as a whole fever ward —have to study all night to get my ravings down pat, and the d doctor won’t come around to pronounce on Ecomicbooks:.co