and easy, bantering, careless, jolly, and Peter
expanded in it. Julie led them all. She was never at a loss, and
apparently had no care in the world.

The two girls and Peter went together to dinner and sat at the same
table. They talked a good deal together, and Peter gathered they had come
to know each other at a hospital in England. They were full of
reminiscences.

"Do you remember ducking Pockett?" Teanie asked Julie.

"Lor', I should think I do! Tell Peter. He won't be horrified unless you
go into details. If I cough, Solomon, you're to change the subject. Carry
on, Teanie."

"Well, Pockett was a nurse of about the last limit. She was fearfully
snobby, which nobody of that name ought to be, and she ruled her pros.
with a rod of iron. I expect that was good for them, and I say nothing
as to that, but she was a beast to the boys. We had some poor chaps in
who were damnably knocked about, and one could do a lot for them in
roundabout ways. Regulations are made to be broken in some cases, I
think. But she was a holy terror. Sooner than call her, the boys would
endure anything, but some of us knew, and once she caught Julie here..."

"It wasn't--it was you, Teanie."

"Oh, well, one of us, anyway, in her ward when she was on night duty,
sitting with a poor chap who pegged out a few days after. It soothed him
to sit and hold her hand. Well, anyway, she was furious and reported it.
There was a bit of a row--had to be, I suppose, as it was against
regulations--but thank God the P.M.O. knew his job, so there was only a
strafe with the tongue in the cheek. However, we swore revenge, and we
had it--eh, Julie?"

"We did. Go on. It was you who thought of it."

"Well, we filled a bath with tepid water and then went to her room one
night. She was asleep, and never heard us. We had a towel round her head
in two twinks, and carried her by the legs and arms to the bathroom.
Julie had her legs, and held 'em well up, so that down went her head
under water. She couldn't yell then. When we let her up, I douched her
with cold water, and then we bolted. We saw to it that there wasn't a
towel in the bathroom, and we locked her bedroom door. Oh, lor', poor
soul, but it was funny! She met an orderly in the corridor, and he nearly
had a fit, and I don't wonder, for her wet nightie clung to her figure
like a skin. She had to try half a dozen rooms before she got anyone to
help her, and then, when she got back, we'd ragged her room to