After a seven weeks' absence one was bound to miss many old friends in the ward. Some had gone home, others were back in the army. Old Number 13, the king of the ward, was still there. He had a dark brown face and white hair, and was furious if any dared to call him a gipsy.
"I am a respectable farmer," he said, "and I own seventeen pigs, a horse, and five sheep, a wife, and two children."
He loved to tell of his wedding. It was done in the correct old Serbian style. He went with his mother and a gun to the chosen one's house, where she was waiting alone, her parents tactfully keeping out of the way. They abducted the lady, who was treated with great honour as a visitor in her future father-in-law's house.
"Father" turned up next morning. Rakia was served, and father divulged ceremoniously how many pigs he could spare to them for keeping his daughter.
Number 13 wanted to know everything: how old was Jo, how much she was paid?
"What, you are not paid?" he said in amazement. "Then the English are wonderful! In Serbia our women would not do that."
Poor little John Willie still left a blank, though he had died long before. His name was not John Willie, but it sounded rather like it, so we just turned it into John Willie. He loved the name, and told his father about it.
They sat all afternoon hand-in-hand, saying at intervals, "Dgonn Oolie," and chuckling.
Jan once had brought back from a spring visit to Kragujevatz some horrible sun hats.
They were the cast-off eccentricities of the fashions of six years ago, and had drifted from the Rue de la Paix to this obscure Serbian shop which was selling them as serious articles of clothing. Jo tried them on, and one of the nurses became so weak with laughter that she tumbled all the way downstairs.