With slow guarded movements he began to dress himself.

Any sudden or violent action might burst the delicate gassed spots in his lungs or throw out of place one of the lower vertebrae of his spine.

The former meant death, and the latter bent his body like a letter S and caused such excruciating agony that it was worse than death.

These were his two ever-present perils.

The other aches and pains he could endure.
He shaved and put on clean things, and his best coat, and surveyed himself in the little mirror.