Into a long broad ward with scarlet counterpaned cots, headed against the wall on either side, and a shining floor between, Bobbie Lancaster, after being with ever so much tenderness bathed and combed in a small room, was conveyed, and there he relinquished for a few weeks his identity and became Number Twenty.  The young doctor whom he saw when first brought into the hospital had whistled softly, and had murmured the words “compound fracture”; the damaged boy felt glad that the injury was of some importance and likely to attract attention.  He woke the morning following his arrival on tea being brought round at five o’clock, to find that his arm, accurately bound up with two small boards, gave him less pain than be had expected.  There was an acceptable scent of cleanliness in the ward, helped sternly by the universal scent of carbolic, receiving more joyful volunteer assistance from the bowl of heliotrope on the Sister’s table at the centre.  Turning his head, Bobbie saw a comfortable p. 74fire blazing away not far from him; a fire that made all polished things reflect its flames; saw, too, that some of his neighbours were unable to rise, and had to be fed by the white-aproned nurses going softly to each cot.  One or two of the numbers had arched protectors under the bedclothes to keep the sheets from touching their small bodies; Number Twenty-one had a head so fully bandaged that there was not much of his face to be seen but the eyes and the tip of a nose; wherefore he was called by the others “Fifth of November.”  Bobbie’s other immediate neighbour, Number Nineteen, a white-faced boy, lost no time in bragging to the new-comer that he possessed hips about as bad as hips could manage to be.

“Well, Twenty,” said the nurse to Bobbie cheerfully.  “You going to stay at our hotel for a few weeks?”  The nurse was a pleasing round-faced young woman, who signalled the approach of an ironical remark by winking; in the absence of this intimation the ward understood Nurse Crowther to be serious.  “All the nobility come here,” said Nurse Crowther, deflecting her eyelid, “seem to have given up Homburg and Wiesbaden and places, and to have made up their mind to come to Margaret Ward.  Here’s Lord Bailey, otherwise known as Nineteen, for instance.”  The white-faced boy laughed at this personal allusion.  “He’s given up everything,” declared Nurse Crowther.  “Dances, receptions, partridge shooting, and I don’t know what all, just in order that he should come and spend a few months here with us.  Isn’t that right, Nineteen?”

“Gawspel!” affirmed little Nineteen, in a whisper.

“It must affect some of the other fashionable resorts,” said Nurse Crowther, pursuing the facetious vein.  “I’m told that there’s nobody at Trouville this year, and as for Switzerland—”

“All the time you’re trying to be funny,” complained Master Lancaster, “you’re letting my milk get cold.  Why don’t you attend to bisness first?”

“Hope you’re not going to be a tiresome boy,” said the nurse.

“Wait and see.”

“I must bring the Sister to see you presently.  You’ve got a nice open face.”

“If I’ve got an open face I can keep me mouth shut,” said Twenty, drinking his milk.  “That’s more than some of you can.”

“Arm pretty comfortable this morning?” asked the nurse, good-temperedly, as she smoothed the scarlet counterpane.  “Had a good night’s rest?  Weren’t disturbed by the noise of the traffic, were you?  What—”

“One at a time, one at a time,” said Twenty crossly.  “I can’t answer forty thousand blooming questions at once.”

“Sit back now, there’s a dear, and keep as quiet as you can till the doctors come round.”

“What time do they put in an appearance?”

“That, dear duke,” said the nurse winking, “entirely depends upon you.  You have but to say the word.”

“If there’s one thing I can’t stand more’n another,” said the boy, settling himself down cautiously, “it is gels trying to be comic.”

The young doctor with three or four men still younger, and all of them endeavouring to look an incalculable age, paid their visit to Margaret Ward in due course, and Bobbie felt indignant because whereas they p. 75stayed at the end of his bed but a couple of minutes writing some casual marks on the blue form pinned on the board above his head, at the next bed they ordered a screen to be placed, and behind this they remained in consultation over the white-faced little Nineteen for quite a long time.  When they had gone, Bobbie salved his jealousy by telling Nineteen at once that Nineteen need not think himself everybody, giving a long list of imaginary complaints that he (Bobbie) had in the past suffered from, ranging in character from a wart on the knuckles to complete paralysis of the right side.  This seemed to restrain any idea that Nineteen might have had of exhibiting conceit, and that little chap contented himself by offering to bet two to one in halfpennies that he would he the next in the Margaret Ward to go.  Bobbie forced the odds to three to one, and then closed with the wager.

“I shan’t be sorry,” said white-faced Nineteen, “’pon me word I shan’t.  It can’t be much worse than this.”

“You be careful how you talk,” advised Bobbie.  “A man that’s getting near to kicking the bucket can’t be too cautious of what he says.”

“Likely as not,” said Nineteen, “it’ll he a jolly sight better than this.”

“How can you tell?”

“Anyway,” said Nineteen, “it’ll he a rare old lark to watch and see what ’appens.  I ’eard a man arguin’ once in Victoria Park that those what put up with a lot in this world, got it all their own way in the next, and vicer verser.”

“How did he get to know?”

“Of course,” admitted Nineteen, “it’s all speculation.”  Little Nineteen yawned.  “I feel bit tired.”

“You take jolly good care what you’re about, old man,” recommended Bobbie.  “You’ll look jolly silly if you find yourself all at once in ’ell.”

“Even that’d be interesting.”

“And hot,” said Bobbie.

“I shouldn’t mind chancing it a bit,” said Nineteen, “only there’s the old woman.  She worries about me a good deal, she does.”

“Your mother?”

“She’d he upset if she thought I hadn’t gone to ’Eaven.”  Nineteen gave the skeleton of a laugh.  “You know what Primitive Methodists are,” he added excusingly.

“Tell you what,” said Bobbie.  “If anything ’appens to you and you pop off the hooks, I’ll tell her that you were going there all right, and I’ll make up something about angels, and say they was your last words.  See!”

“I shall take it very kind of you,” said little Nineteen thankfully.

“You leave it me.  And touchin’ that bet.  Just occurs to me.  If you lose you mayn’t be able to pay.”

“If I win I shan’t be able to dror it off of you.”

“Never mind,” said Bobbie, “we’ll see what ’appens.”

“I’ve never stole nothin’,” urged Nineteen, after a pause.

“You’re all right.”  With some awkwardness.

“I’ve never had a copper even speak to me.”

“You’re as right as ninepence.  There’s lots of cheps worse than you.”

“I’ve got to ’ave port wine and jellies,” remarked Nineteen after a pause.

“Some of you get all the luck,” said Bobbie.  At which Nineteen dozed off contentedly.

p. 76When, later in the morning, the tall young Sister came up to Bobbie’s cot and introduced herself, he permitted her to talk for some time, and watched her quiet, attractive face.  Dressed in her plain gown, she looked, the boy thought, perfect, and he touched the white hand that rested on the coverlet of his bed with shy respect.  Sister Margaret talked of his accident; chatted about the other numbers of the ward.  Leaving him for a moment to give white-faced Nineteen a kiss, she was called back by Bobbie.

“I say, Miss.”

“Well, Twenty.”

“Something to ask you.  Bend down.”

As the tall young woman obeyed, Bobbie put one hand to his mouth in order that his confidential inquiry might not be heard by the other boys.  “How’s your young man?” he whispered.

Sister Margaret flushed and stood upright.

“What do you mean, Twenty?” she answered, severely.  “You must understand that here we don’t allow boys to be impudent.”

“It’s all right, Miss,” whispered Bobbie.  “Don’t fly all to pieces.  I’m not chaffing of you.  I mean Mr. West—Mr. Myddleton West.”

“You know Mr. West?” she said, bending down again.

“Rather!” said the boy.  “Saw your photograph in his place yesterday.  Only one in the room.”

She sat down beside the bed, her eyes taking a light of interest.  Bobbie looking round the ward to see that this special honour was being noted, and observed that the numbers on the opposite side scowled jealously at him.

“I’ve known him off and on,” said Bobbie, “these two or three years.  Good sort, he is.”

“Mr. West is indeed a very good fellow,” said the Sister earnestly.  “But you—you are wrong, Twenty, in assuming that we are engaged.  Nothing, in point of fact, is further from the truth.  We are very good friends, and that is all.”

“You don’t kid me,” said the boy knowingly.

“Twenty!  I shall be extremely annoyed if, whilst you are in the ward, you couple my name with Mr. West’s.”

“Shouldn’t think of doing so, Sister,” he said seriously.  “If there’s one thing I can do better than another it is keeping a secret.  Once I make up my mind to shut my mouth, wild ’orses wouldn’t open it.”

“I like him,” she went on (it appeared that the Sister was not averse to speaking of Myddleton West), “I like him very much, but it is possible to like a person, Twenty, without going so far as to become engaged.”

“Depends!”

“There are several courses open nowadays to women,” she said half to herself, and with something of enthusiasm.  “It is no longer marriage or nothing for them.  There are certain duties in the world—public duties—that a woman can take upon herself, and marriage would only interfere with their performance.  The old idea of woman’s place in the world was, to my mind, not quite decent.  We are getting away from all that, and we are coming to see that the possibilities—”

“Don’t he mind your taking up with this nonsense?” asked Bobbie.  The boy’s interruption stopped the argumentative young woman.  She p. 77laughed brightly at finding herself lecturing to Twenty on this subject, and, smoothing his pillow before she went, asked him with a smile whether he did not agree with her.

“I call it a silly ass of an idea,” he said frankly.

This was not the last talk that he had with the tall young Sister of the ward, and for some days in that week the ward inclined to mutiny on account of the disproportionate time that she gave to Twenty and to little Nineteen.  It almost seemed that Nineteen showed signs of improvement under the combined influence of her visits and the companionship of Bobbie his neighbour; Bobbie’s predecessor had been a gloomy boy, with his own views in regard to details of eternal torments, and Bobbie’s optimism cheered the white-faced boy so much that when his tearful mother came to see him, being by special permission admitted at any time, she found herself debating with him on his walk in life when he should grow up, and discussing the relative advantages of the position of engine-driver as compared with that of policeman.  Nineteen introducing his neighbour, Nineteen’s mother gave Bobbie two oranges and an illuminated card bearing minatory texts.  Bobbie enjoyed the oranges.

“I think he’s better, nurse,” said Nineteen’s mother respectfully.  “Seems to have got more colour, and—”

“It’s my belief,” answered Nurse Crowther at the foot of the bed, “that there’s nothing whatever the matter with his lordship.  I believe it’s all his nonsense.  I tell him that he’ll have to take me to the th............