{"product_id":"2940013336155","title":"THE RED PLANET","description":"CHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Lady Fenimore's compliments, sir, and will you be so kind as to step\u003cbr\u003eround to Sir Anthony at once?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHeaven knows that never another step shall I take in this world again;\u003cbr\u003ebut Sergeant Marigold has always ignored the fact. That is one of the\u003cbr\u003emany things I admire about Marigold. He does not throw my poor\u003cbr\u003eparalysed legs, so to speak, in my face. He accepts them as the normal\u003cbr\u003eequipment of an employer. I don't know what I should do without\u003cbr\u003eMarigold.... You see we were old comrades in the South African War,\u003cbr\u003ewhere we both got badly knocked to pieces. He was Sergeant in my\u003cbr\u003ebattery, and the same Boer shell did for both of us. At times we join\u003cbr\u003ein cursing that shell heartily, but I am not sure that we do not hold\u003cbr\u003eit in sneaking affection. It initiated us into the brotherhood of\u003cbr\u003edeath. Shortly afterwards when we had crossed the border-line back into\u003cbr\u003elife, we exchanged, as tokens, bits of the shrapnel which they had\u003cbr\u003eextracted from our respective carcases. I have not enquired what he did\u003cbr\u003ewith his bit; but I keep mine in a certain locked drawer.... There were\u003cbr\u003eonly the two of us left on the gun when we were knocked out.... I\u003cbr\u003eshould like to tell you the whole story, but you wouldn't listen to me.\u003cbr\u003eAnd no wonder. In comparison with the present world convulsion in which\u003cbr\u003ethe slaughtered are reckoned by millions, the Boer War seems a trumpery\u003cbr\u003eaffair of bows and arrows. I am a back-number. Still, back-numbers have\u003cbr\u003etheir feelings--and their memories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI sometimes wonder, as I sit in this wheel-chair, with my abominable\u003cbr\u003elegs dangling down helplessly, what Sergeant Marigold thinks of me. I\u003cbr\u003eknow what I think of Marigold. I think him the ugliest devil that God\u003cbr\u003eever created and further marred after creating him. He is a long, bony\u003cbr\u003ecreature like a knobbly ram-rod, and his face is about the colour and\u003cbr\u003eshape of a damp, mildewed walnut. To hide a bald head into which a\u003cbr\u003esilver plate has been fixed, he wears a luxuriant curly brown wig, like\u003cbr\u003ethose that used to adorn waxen gentlemen in hair-dressing windows. His\u003cbr\u003eis one of those unhappy moustaches that stick out straight and scanty\u003cbr\u003elike a cat's. He has the slit of a letter-box mouth of the Irishman in\u003cbr\u003ecaricature, and only half a dozen teeth spaced like a skeleton company.\u003cbr\u003eNothing will induce him to procure false ones. It is a matter of\u003cbr\u003eprinciple. Between the wearing of false hair and the wearing of false\u003cbr\u003eteeth he makes a distinction of unfathomable subtlety. He is an\u003cbr\u003eobstinate beast. If he wasn't he would not, with four fingers of his\u003cbr\u003eright hand shot away, have remained with me on that gun. In the same\u003cbr\u003eway, neither tears nor entreaties nor abuse have induced him to wear a\u003cbr\u003eglass eye. On high days and holidays, whenever he desires to look smart\u003cbr\u003eand dashing, he covers the unpleasing orifice with a black shade. In\u003cbr\u003eordinary workaday life he cares not how much he offends the aesthetic\u003cbr\u003esense. But the other eye, the sound left eye, is a wonder--the precious\u003cbr\u003ejewel set in the head of the ugly toad. It is large, of ultra-marine\u003cbr\u003eblue, steady, fearless, humorous, tender--everything heroic and\u003cbr\u003ebeautiful and romantic you can imagine about eyes. Let him clap a hand\u003cbr\u003eover that eye and you will hold him the most dreadful ogre that ever\u003cbr\u003eescaped out of a fairy tale. Let him clap a hand over the other eye and\u003cbr\u003elook full at you out of the good one and you will think him the\u003cbr\u003eKnightliest man that ever was--and in my poor opinion, you would not be\u003cbr\u003efar wrong.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47147518623984,"sku":"2940013336155","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013336155_p0.jpg?v=1763579860","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013336155","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}