He was a young giant.

For certain the old father of Frederick the Great would have had him in his regiment of Grenadier Guards.

Well, for that matter, he was a grenadier in the employ of the same family now.

He hobbled in under his own motive power and leaned against the wall until the first flurry was over.

Then, at a nod from one of the shirt-sleeved surgeons, he stretched himself upon a bare wooden table which had just been vacated and indicated that he wanted relief for his leg--which leg, I recall, was incased in a rude, splintlike arrangement of plaited straw.