"They tell me it is—fellows on board who pretend to know everything.
But I suspect that to be a mere ruse to get me to stay inside it."
Joe sighed. "I do envy you," he said. "Everyone seems to have something to do, 'cept me. Even Betty here——"
The Indiarubber Man turned his head sharply. "Why, what——"
Betty turned pink. "I'm going to nurse—on the East Coast. My old school has been turned into a hospital. And the other day Miss Dacre—she was the principal, you know, and she is nursing there now—wrote to mother and said they would take me."
"But," said the Indiarubber Man, "d'you think you could stick it—hacking off fellows' legs, and that sort of thing? Blessed if I could do it."
"Oh, yes," was the calm reply. "I passed all my exams, a long time ago—in fact, I've been working down here at this hospital for the last six months. We learned a good deal at school, you see. Home nursing, and so on."
"Did you, by Jove! Simple dishes for the sick-room and spica bandages, and all the rest of it?"
Betty laughed. "Oh, yes, all that."
The Indiarubber Man glanced at her small, capable hands, and from them to the dainty profile beside him. "Well," he said, "if I get bent by an eight-inch shell I shall know where to come."
Betty laughed again; "I should have to look that up in a book, then, before I nursed you. It might mean complications!"