A thrush hopped across the lawn, and paused to regard him with one bright eye. Apparently reassured, it deftly secured and swallowed a worm.
The Indiarubber Man laughed. "Doesn't anybody love you either?" he said.
Betty reappeared in the distance carrying a tray in her hands. The thrush, as if realising that two is company and three none, flew away.
Betty handed a cup to the invalid. "There's a piece of toast too—you must soak it in the beef-tea, and here is a little bell. If you want anything, or you aren't comfortable, you can ring it."
"I see." The Indiarubber Man gravely accepted all three gifts and laid them on the seat beside him. "Thank you awfully. But you aren't going away, are you?"
"Of course I am," said Betty. "I'm very busy. You must remember that this is a hospital, that you're a patient and I'm a nurse." She moved off sedately.
"Miss Betty!" called the Indiarubber Man. "I mean 'Nurse.'" Betty turned and retraced her footsteps. "Wouldn't it be awful if I was suddenly taken very ill indeed—if I came over all of a tremble, and tried to ring the toast and soaked the bell in my beef-tea?"
"From what I've seen of you during the last six weeks," replied Betty the Hospital Nurse, "such a thing wouldn't surprise me a little bit." She left him to his graceless self.
For a while after she had gone the Indiarubber Man tried to read a book. Tiring of that, he lit a pipe and smoked it without enthusiasm. Tobacco tasted oddly flavourless and unfamiliar. Then he remembered his beef-tea and drank it obediently, soaking the toast as he had been bidden. Remained the bell. For a long time he sat staring at it.
"Much better get it over," he said aloud. "One way or the other."