The boy exprest his permanent abandonment of all the glories enumerated.
"Then come along," said she, taking him by the collar. "Let me catch you around with any more ramrods and carving knives, and you'll think the leaping, curling, resistless prairie fire has swept with a ferocious roar of triumph across the trembling plains and lodged under your jacket to stay!"
HOPKINS' LAST MOMENTS
ANONYMOUS
Nurses in hospitals are inclined to lay too much stress on the advantages received by the patients and their duty of thankfulness, but it is the poor soldier who suffers most from always having his cause to be grateful flung in his teeth. The following true story took place between the chaplain and the hospital orderly:
Chaplain—"So poor Hopkins is dead. I should like to have spoken to him once more and soothed his last moments. Why didn't you call me?"
Hospital Orderly—"I didn't think you ought to be disturbed for 'Opkins, sir; so I just soothed him as best I could myself."
Chaplain—"Why, what did you say to him?"
Orderly—"I sez, ''Opkins, you're mortal bad.'"
"'I am,' sez 'e."
"''Opkins,' sez I, 'I don't think you'll get better.'"