The very women in Piccadilly spat if he spoke to them; and he blew his brains out in a back bedroom off the Haymarket.
Curious that, eh?
He hadn't the pluck to face the bullets when his name was at stake, yet he could blow his own brains out afterwards." Lieutenant Sutch chanced to look at the clock as the story came to an end.

It was now a quarter to one.

Harry Feversham had still a quarter of an hour's furlough, and that quarter of an hour was occupied by a retired surgeon-general with a great wagging beard, who sat nearly opposite to the boy.
"I can tell you an incident still more curious," he said.

"The man in this case had never been under fire before, but he was of my own profession.

Life and death were part of his business.