I sat up in bed suddenly. Life seemed rosy once more. 'You angel,' I exclaimed, 'how exciting.'
'What a ridiculous kid you are, little 'un, up one minute and down the next.'
'Well, it is exciting. What did you wake me up for if you didn't think so?'
'I thought you said you weren't asleep!'
I pushed him out and shut the door. The thought of the date so consoled me that I went to sleep immediately, but I had one of my dreadful nightmares. I dreamed that the foundations of the house fell outwards with a crash, leaving the walls, which were made of squashed fly biscuits, standing on the date—B.C. .4!
'Uncle John' came in to survey the wreckage the next morning, but can't repair the roof till Monday. Then I showed him the crack in my ceiling.
'That ain't nothing, mum, surface, that is; I can put a bit of plaster on it now if you like, but it don't need it.'
So I decided to dispense with the plaster and to sleep in my own bedroom, but my keeper thought otherwise, so we had words about it.
'Ross, what is the difference between the air coming in at the roof or coming in at the window?' But there is apparently a most enormous difference, and my brother said,—
'You're not going to sleep in that draught. There's a most beastly bug about just now. All the men at Canley barracks are down with it, kind of "'flu," I suppose; you get a frightful cold in your head, and then your tummy gets distended, and you can't button your trousers, and——'