kept
him awake that night.

It was the next day that Twenty-two had his idea. He ran true to
form, and carried it back to Jane Brown for her approval. But she
was not enthusiastic.

"It would help to amuse them, of course, but how can you publish a
newspaper without any news?" she asked, rather listlessly, for her.

"News! This building is full of news. I have some bits already.
Listen!" He took a notebook out of his pocket. "The stork breaks
quarantine. New baby in O ward. The chief engineer has developed a
boil on his neck. Elevator Man arrested for breaking speed limit.
Wanted, four square inches of cuticle for skin grafting in W. How's
that? And I'm only beginning."

Jane Brown listened. Somehow, behind Twenty-two's lightness of tone,
she felt something more earnest. She did not put it into words, even
to herself, but she divined something new, a desire to do his bit,
there in the hospital. It was, if she had only known it, a
milestone in a hitherto unmarked career. Twenty-two, who had always
been a man, was by way of becoming a person.

He explained about publishing it. He used to run a typewriter in
college, and the convalescents could mimeograph it and sell it.
There was a mimeographing machine in the office.

The Senior Surgical Interne came in just then. Refusing to marry him
had had much the effect of smacking a puppy. He came back, a trifle
timid, but friendly. So he came in just then, and elected himself to
the advertising and circulation department, and gave the Probationer
the society end, although it was not his paper or his idea, and sat
down at once at the table and started a limerick, commencing:

"_We're here in the city, marooned_"

However, he never got any further with it, because there are,
apparently, no rhymes for "marooned." He refused "tuned" which
several people offered him, with extreme scorn.

Up to this point Jane Brown had been rather too worried to think
about Twenty-two. She had grown accustomed to seeing him coming
slowly back toward her ward, his eyes travelling much faster than he
did. Not, of course, that she knew that. And to his being, in a way,
underfoot a part of every day, after the Head had made rounds and
was safely out of the road for a good two hours.

But two things happened that day to turn her mind in onto her heart.
One was when she heard about the artificial leg. The other was when
she passed the door of his room, where a large card now announced