MORE REPRISALS.
That ass Ellis is a poor creature, and, like the poor, he is always with me. I think he is a punishment inflicted upon me for some past error.
A short time ago I caught the "flu." Naturally the first person I suspected was Ellis, but I am bound to confess that I have not been able to prove it. Indeed, when he followed me to hospital two days later and was put in the next bed, I felt justified in exonerating him altogether.
The first remark that he made, when he reached that stage of the complaint where you feel like making remarks, illustrates just the kind of man he is. He accused me of giving the thing to him!
I answered his outburst with the scorn it deserved.
"Preposterous," I said.
I added a few apposite remarks, to which he responded as best he could. But, medically speaking, I was two days senior to him, so that when the Sister heard the uproar and bustled up it was he who was forbidden to speak. She then proceeded to clinch the matter by inserting a thermometer in his mouth. I defy any man to argue under such a handicap.
I finished all I had to say and relapsed into an expectant silence. The Sister returned after a time, read the instrument and retired without a word. As she passed my bed I saw out of the corner of my eye that Ellis was watching feverishly. An inspiration seized me. I stopped her, and in a low voice asked if she had fed her rabbits. Sister isn't allowed to keep rabbits, but she does. As I hoped, she put a finger to her lips, nodded and walked away.
"Poor old man," I murmured vaguely to the ward in general. "A hundred-and-seven and still rising! Poor old Ellis!"
Ellis gave a little moan and collapsed under the bedclothes.
An hour later Burnett went his round. Burnett isn't the doctor, at least not the official one. I must tell you something about Burnett.
He is the grandfather of the ward. Though quite a young man he has grown fat through long lying in bed. He entered hospital, I understand, towards the end of 1914, suffering from influenza. Since then he has had a nibble at every imaginable disease, not to mention a number of imaginary ones as well. Regularly four times a day he would waddle round the ward in his dingy old dressing-gown, discussing symptoms with every cot. In exchange for your helping of pudding he would take your temperature and let you know the answer, and for a bunch of grapes he would tell you the probable course of your complaint and the odds against complete recovery. No one seemed to interfere with him. You see, Burnett was no longer a case; he was an institution.
He spent a long time by Ellis's bedside. I suspect Ellis wasn't feeling much like pudding at the moment. I couldn't hear very well what was going on, but Ellis was chattering as only Ellis can, and the comfortable Burnett was apparently soothing him with an occasional "All right, old man. I'll see what I can do for you."
At length the grapes were all consumed and the huge form of Burnett loomed above me.
"Why, Mr. L——," said the soothing voice, "I don't want to alarm you, but really—"
"Really what?" I cried, starting up in bed at the gravity of his tone.
"Well, you know—your colour; I perhaps—"
He fumbled in the folds of his voluminous gown and produced a small metal mirror. Then he seemed to change his mind and put it back again.
"I'd better not," he said softly to himself, and then louder to me, "Have you got a wife—or perhaps a mother?"
I am no coward, but I confess I was trembling by this time.
"Why?" I cried. "Do you think I ought to send for them?"
"Send for them?" he echoed. "Send for them? And you in the grip of C.S.M.! It would be sheer madness—murder!"
The cold sweat stood out upon my brow but I kept my head.
"Have an apple, won't you, Mr. Burnett?"
He selected the largest and began to munch it in silence—silence, that is, as far as talking was concerned.
"Tell me," I stammered; "wh—what is C.S.M.? And may I have a look at myself?"
He cogitated. "Shall I?" he muttered. "Yes, I think he ought to know." Then quite quietly, accompanied by the core of the apple, there fell from his lips the fatal words "Cerebro-spinal meningitis."
At the same time he handed me the glass and selected the next best apple.
I looked at myself. My hair stood straight on end; my face was whitish-yellow, my eyes blazed with unmistakable fever. A three-days' beard enhanced the horrible effect.
"Have you any pain—there?" One of his large soft hands gripped my side and pinched it hard, the other selected the third best apple.
"Yes," I groaned, "I had pain there."
"Ah!" he shook his head. "And there?" He sat down heavily on my right ankle. He is a ponderous man.
"Agony," I moaned.
"Ah! And something throbbing like a gong in the brain?" he inquired, tapping me on the head with the metal mirror.
I nodded dumbly. He rose, shrugging his shoulders.
"All the symptoms, I'm afraid. That's just how it took poor old Simpson. He had this very cot—let me see, back in '16, I suppose. I had it very slightly afterwards—it was touch and go; I was the only one they pulled through—but I only had it very slightly, you understand—not like that. But cheer up, old man. I've been told that a fellow got through it in the next ward—of course he's an idiot now, but he didn't die. I don't suppose you'll be wanting the rest of these apples, will you? All right, don't mention it;" and he passed on to the next cot.
When the proper doctor came round a few minutes later (Burnett says) he found his own thermometer quite inadequate and had to borrow the one that registers the heat of the ward. When he took it out of my mouth it wasn't far short of boiling-point, and he wrote straight off to The Lancet about it; also they had to get one of those lightning calculator chaps down to count my pulse.
Long before I came to, Ellis had been discharged, the ward had filled up with fresh cases (except Burnett, of course), and the armistice had been signed.
When I was well enough they handed me a letter which Ellis had left for me.
"DEAR L——" (it ran),—"Yes, the rabbits have had their food. The biggest of them swallowed it all most satisfactorily.
"Your loving ELLIS."
"AND I SUPPOSE YOU WILL BE DEMOBILISED AS SOON AS YOU GET OUT OF HOSPITAL?"
"OH, NO, MUM. YOU SEE, I WAS A SOLDIER IN CIVVY LIFE."
Hostess. "WHAT! GOING ALREADY, DEARS? IT'S VERY EARLY."
Little Girl. "YES—WE HAVE TO GO ON TO ANOTHER PARTY. WE'RE SORRY, BUT—YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR."
SHAKSPEARE on not the least surprising of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S appointments:—
"How now, Woolsack? what mutter you?"
I. Henry IV., ii. 4, 148.