"IT."
PHASE I.
The doctor says, perfectly cheerfully and as though it were really not a matter of vital importance, that there is no doubt that I have got IT. He remarks that IT is all over the place, and that he has a couple of hundred other cases at the present time.
I resent his attitude as far as I have strength to do anything at all. I did not give permission for him to be called in just to have my sufferings brushed aside like this. He only stays about three minutes altogether, during which time he relates two funny stories (at least I suppose they are funny, because my nurse laughs; I can't see any point in them myself), and makes several futile remarks about the War. As though the War were a matter of importance by comparison! Then he goes, talking breezily all the way down the stairs.
Well, I think darkly, they will be sorry presently. I have no intention or expectation of getting better, and when they see me a fair young corpse then they'll know.
Already I loathe the Two Hundred. Not that I believe for a minute the story of my own disease being the same as their miserable little complaints. In recurring periods of conscious thought I go through the list of things I know for a fact I have got—rheumatic fever, sciatica, lumbago, toothache, neuritis, bronchitis, laryngitis, tonsilitis, neuralgia, gastritis, catarrh of several kinds, heart disease and inflammation (or possibly congestion) of the lungs. I shall think of some more presently, if my nurse will let me alone and not keep on worrying me with her "Just drink this." Bother the woman! Why doesn't she get off the earth? What's the use of my swallowing that man's filthy medicine when he doesn't know what's the matter with me?
I hate everybody and everything, especially the eider-down quilt, which rises in slow billows in front of my eyes and threatens to engulf me. When in a paroxysm of fury I suddenly cast it on the floor, it lies there still billowing, and seems to leer at me. There is something fat and sinister and German about that eiderdown. I never noticed it before. Two Hundred German eider-downs!
The firelight flickers weirdly about the room and I try to count the shadows. But before I begin I know the answer—TWO HUNDRED.
I drift into a nightmare of Two Hundred elusive cabbages which I am endeavouring to plant in my new allotment, where a harsh fate forces me to dig and dig and DIG, and, as a natural consequence, also to ache and ache and ACHE.
PHASE II.
I can stand up with assistance from the bed-post and totter feebly to an arm-chair by the fire, where I sit in a dressing-gown and weep. What for? I couldn't say, except that it seems a fit and proper thing to do.
I am still of opinion that I am not long for this world, and my favourite occupation at present is counting up the number of wreaths that I might justifiably expect to have sent to my funeral. I don't tell my nurse, who would immediately try to "cheer me up" by talking to me or giving me a magazine to look at. And I would much rather count wreaths. The Smiths probably would not be able to afford one....
My thoughts are distracted by the sudden apparition of a little meal. I begin to take an interest in these little meals, which are of such frequent occurrence that I am reduced to tears again, this time at the thought of the extra expense I am causing. And all for nothing. Why don't they save the money for wreaths?
The doctor comes while I am swallowing my egg, miserably yet with a certain gusto, and I dry my eyes hastily as I hear him bounding up the stairs.
"Hullo," he calls out before he is well through the door, "how are we to-day, eh? Beginning to sit up and take notice? I think we'll change your medicine."
"I think," I remark resignedly, "that it will be best for someone to dig a hole and bury me."
"Jolly good idea," he agrees heartily. "In fact why not do it to all of us? Please the Germans so too. But it can't be done, you know—there's a shortage of grave-diggers."
Heartless brute!
Regimental Sergeant-Major (to lady driver of motor ambulance). "I SEE YOU'VE GOT STRIPES. HAVE YOU GOT A SERGEANT-MAJOR?"
Corporal Maud Evans. "HAVE WE GOT A SERGEANT-MAJOR? I SHOULD THINK WE HAVE—THE CAT!"
"By fixing five potatoless days hope is entertained that supplies, which are scent, will be left to poor people who most require them."—Daily Chronicle.
This explains the remark of the Irishman who protested that it was weeks since he had tasted even "the smell of a potato."
"It will take years to cleanse the Ægean stables."—Civil and Military Gazette.
Still, M. VENEZELOS has made a good beginning with Samos, Lemnos and several other 'osses.
From the report of a prohibition meeting at Peebles:—
"A pleasant and most enjoyable addendum was a series of lantern slides depicting the havoc wrought by the Huns in Belgium."—Peebleshire Advertiser.
It is still "Peebles for pleasure" at any cost.
