it be awful if I was
suddenly taken very ill indeed--if I came over all of a tremble, and
tried to ring the toast and soaked the bell in my beef-tea?"

"From what I've seen of you during the last six weeks," replied Betty
the Hospital Nurse, "such a thing wouldn't surprise me a little bit."
She left him to his graceless self.

For a while after she had gone the Indiarubber Man tried to read a
book. Tiring of that, he lit a pipe and smoked it without enthusiasm.
Tobacco tasted oddly flavourless and unfamiliar. Then he remembered
his beef-tea and drank it obediently, soaking the toast as he had been
bidden. Remained the bell. For a long time he sat staring at it.

"Much better get it over," he said aloud. "One way or the other."

Cautiously he looked round. No one was in sight; the windows at the
back of the hospital that overlooked this secluded lawn had been the
windows of class-rooms, and were of frosted glass. With the aid of his
crutches he got up unsteadily, and then, maintaining a precarious
balance with one crutch, he thrust the other one under the seat
leverwise, and with an effort tipped it over backwards on to the
flowerbed.

This accomplished, the Indiarubber Man looked round again to convince
himself that the manoeuvre was unobserved. Reassured on this point, he
lowered himself down gingerly over the seat until he was lying on his
back with his legs in the air and his head in a clump of marigolds. In
this attitude he seized the bell and rang it furiously, feebly waving
his uninjured leg the while.

The moments passed. From his prostrate position behind the seat he was
unable to obtain a view of the lawn, and stopped ringing the bell to
listen. He heard a faint cry in the distance, and then the flutter of
skirts. The next instant Betty was bending over him, white and
breathless.

"Oh!" she cried, "how _did_ it happen? Did the seat tip over
backwards--are you hurt?" and kneeling beside him raised his unhallowed
head. The Indiarubber Man closed his eyes.

"You told me to ring if I wasn't comfortable, and I wasn't a bit. I
hate the smell of marigolds too. No--please don't move; I'm very
comfortable now." Betty looked wildly in the direction of the house
for help.

"I heard the bell," she said in a queer, breathless little voice, "and
I just came out to look . . . and then I ran. I ought to have called
someone. Ring the bell--I can't move you by myself. We must have
assistance. How