"And I'm just glad I caught you in time," she said sternly. "That is why I like nursing men so much better than women. Men are too scared about themselves to go poking their noses into medical books, but women are so curious about their own cases that there is no holding them in. They look at their charts—I have seen them doing it in hospital when the nurses' backs were turned. They take their own temperatures, feel their own pulses, and ask a thousand questions which no sensible nurse would dream of answering."
"I have not asked silly questions," I argued.
"No, because up to now you have been far too poorly. What is it you want to know?"
"When I may get up," I said eagerly.
"Well, you won't find that in a medical book. Did you expect to do so?"
"Oh, no. I wanted to find out of what spines are made; the diseases to which they are subject," I said rather lamely.
"Yours isn't a disease, but an accident. Dr. Renton will tell you fast enough when you may get up." She put the book into a drawer.
"It seems so long to Wednesday."
"He is not coming till next week."
"Not till next week," I said blankly, "and this is only Monday. He said he would come on Wednesday."