th the syringe: he will sleep now and
I can go home.

If one did not forget the hospital when one leaves it, life wouldn't be
very nice.

From pillar to post....

The dairyman, who has been gone to another hospital these five weeks,
returned to-day, saying miserably as he walked into the ward, "Me 'ead's
queerer than ever." His eyes, I think, are larger too, and he has still
that manner of looking as though he thought some one could do something
for him.

I can't--beyond raising the smallest of tablets to him with the
inscription, "Another farthing spent...."

Waker had a birthday yesterday and got ten post cards and a telegram.
But that is as nothing to another anniversary.

"A year to-morrow I got my wound--two o'clock to-morrow morning."

"Shall you be awake, Waker?"

"Yes."

How will he celebrate it? I would give a lot to know what will pass in
his mind. For I don't yet understand this importance they attach to such
an anniversary. One and all, they know the exact hour and minute on
which their bit of metal turned them for home.

Sometimes a man will whisper, "Nurse...." as I go by the bed; and when I
stop I hear, "In ten minutes it will be a twelvemonth!" and he fixes his
eyes on me.

What does he want me to respond? I don't know whether I should be glad
or sorry that he got it. I can't imagine what he thinks of as the minute
ticks. For I can see by his words that the scene is blurred and no
longer brings back any picture. "Did you crawl back or walk?"

"I ... walked." He is hardly sure.

I know that for some of them, for Waker, that moment at two o'clock in
the morning changed his whole career. From that moment his arm was
paralysed, the nerves severed; from that moment football was off, and
with it his particular ambition. And football, governing a kingdom, or
painting a picture--a man's ambition is his ambition, and when it is
wiped out his life is changed.

But he knows all that, he has had time to think of all that. What,
then, does this particular minute bring him?

They think I know; for when they tell me in that earnest voice that the
minute is approaching they take for granted that I too will share some
sacrament with them.

Waker is not everything a man should be: he isn't clever. But he is so
very brave.

After his tenth operation two days ago there was a question as to
whether he should have his pluggings changed under gas or not. The
discussion went on between the doctors