came to me on a tray, was delicious: porridge and milk, tea, bread, butter, and jam. I wanted a second round, but something was said about temperature, and I was forced to be content.

Late in the day, as it seemed, but actually about nine o'clock, my uncle came to see me. Poor fellow, he too had passed a sleepless night and showed it. What could he do for me? There was just one man I wanted to see above all others my friend Hutt, or as he pronounced it, 'Utt, the bookseller in Clements Inn Passage. Would my uncle go and bring him to me? He would; he did not say so, but he would have fetched me a toothpick from the furtherest inch of Asia if I had asked for it. He had never seen Mr. Hutt, he had been in London only some forty-eight hours, he did not know his way around, and was as nervous as a hen. I told him as well as I could where Hutt's shop was and he started off; as he went, I noticed he was carrying my umbrella, which had a rather curious horn handle studded with roundheaded silver tacks quite an unusual-looking handle. I am telling the exact truth when I say that my uncle promptly lost his way, and an hour later, my friend Hutt, hurrying along the crowded Strand, saw a man wandering about, apparently looking for someone or something, and carrying my umbrella. He went up and, calling my uncle by name (he had heard me speak of him), asked if he could direct him anywhere. My uncle was amazed, as well he might be, and conducted my friend, or rather was conducted by him, to my bedside.

When Mr. Willett came in on his rounds later in the day, my uncle entered upon a rather acrimonious discussion with him on the subject of my being a charity patient in a public ward. Mr. Willett explained very patiently that I should have every attention, but as for private rooms, there were none. Whatever I needed, the hospital would supply, but under the rules nothing could be brought in to me, nothing of any kind or character, and no tips or fees were permitted. Finally my uncle, dear old man, broke down and cried; and then Mr. Willett, like the gentleman he was, said, “I tell you what I'll do. There are no private rooms, but so sure I am that your nephew would not in a week's time go into one if there were, that I promise that, when he can be moved without danger, I will personally put him in a nursing home and take care of him myself if he wishes it; but I know from experience that your nephew will find so much of interest going on about him that he will wish to remain here. We have had gentlemen here before—why, sir, nobility even. even." With this we were forced to be content, and it turned out exactly as Mr. Willett prophesied.

My greatest discomfort arose from my being compelled to remain always in one position. With my leg in a plaster-cast, in which were two windows through which my wounds were observed and dressed, and securely fastened in a cradle, I was compelled to remain on my back and could move only my upper body without assistance. At first I found this desperately irksome, but I gradually became accus

tomed to it. I was greatly helped by a simple device which I thought at the time a great blessing; I have never seen it elsewhere, and wonder why. In the wall about eight feet above the head of each bed was set a stout iron bracket, a bracket strong enough to bear the weight of a heavy man. From the end of

the bracket, about thirty inches from the wall, hung a rope, perhaps five feet long; a handle-bar with a hole in it, through which the rope passed, enabled one to adjust the handle at any height desired above the bed. A knot at the end of the rope prevented the handle slipping off and fixed the lower limit of its travel, but it could be adjusted by another knot at any higher point desired. The primary object of this device, which was called a pulley, was to enable the patient to lift himself up in bed without subjecting his lower body to strain of any kind. But it had many other purposes. From it one could hang one's newspaper, or watch, or handkerchief, and it served also as a harmless plaything. Have you seen a kitten play with a ball of wool? In like manner have I seen great men relieve the monotony with their pulley, spinning it, swinging it, sliding the handle up and down, for hours at a time.

Without suggesting that I was in any way a conspicuous person in the ward, I am bound to say that my fellow patients treated me as a "toff" - in other words, a swell. This was due solely to the fact that I had a watch. Such a possession in a public ward of a London hospital is like keeping a carriage or a gig; to use Carlyle's word, it is a mark of respectability.