Proin rhoncus egestas nibh, vitae volutpat ipsum. Fusce in sapien quis arcu sodales tristique. Morbi id tellus quam. Vivamus tristique arcu est, et tincidunt odio cursus vehicula. Etiam urna magna, aliquet sed aliquet vitae, egestas nec augue. Cras consectetur viverra ipsum, in congue turpis.

Doctor McNair was a pretty good sort, if a bit pompous to her underlings, and a bit servile to her superior. Doctor Sally Bottle, I frankly despised for a toady. She licked the boots of the wealthy and fairly ate the feet off a title. She was terribly almighty over week-ends in the San.

I don’t believe Doctor Sally saw people when she looked in their faces. She saw and calculated the value of the lungs in their chest.

I got on with most of the nurses. I loved Hokey and Matron Lovat.

Serious work had been put out of my life but I used to make caricatures and silly rhymes about the patients and staff, at which they used to laugh immoderately. Because of those laughs they forgave a lot of my shortcomings.

Time ambled by, days alike as peas in a pod—sleeping, eating, resting. They kept me in bed for three months. Then I was a ‘Semi’ but I never was a complete ‘Up’. I only went to table for the noon dinner and walked little.

Lament of the Polar Bear

I perished in the London Zoo

Because it was so hot

I used to lie and bake and bask

And murmur at my lot

Oh, had I been to Nayland sent,

I would not now be dead

But feeling quite at home and cool

Instead.

After each bunch of giggles at one of her own jokes, a great sigh burst through the keyholes and Susie’s flat forehead churned into wrinkles. Susie was enthusiastic over her own jokes and sprang one after another like waves splashing on a beach. Each joke had a bridesmaid, or rather four bridesmaids, when everything Susieish happened all over again, giggle, sigh, wrinkle, joke!

Susie Spinner was not T.B. She was a friend of Dr. Bottle’s and came to the San for week-end jaunts because she loved the place. She ran an office in London, also an aged mother. She was not young herself. These little rests at the San kept her going; she loved to float on the dead sea of San life, doing as she was told, stretched inert on a lounge chair on the terrace, speculating as to each patient’s chances, telling Susie Spinner jokes.

“Hokey, I prefer dismal patients to jokers, if patients there must be.”

Hokey said, “Miss Spinner wants to meet you.”

“A want not reciprocated.”

“Don’t be a grump.” She set our chairs side by side on the terrace.

Close-up, the gymnastics of Susie’s features were more irritating than I had suspected.

“I have heard about your birds for Canada. (Giggle!) Splendid idea. (Giggle, giggle!) I adore birds, don’t you? But, of course, or you’d never—”. (Giggle, giggle, giggle.)

Rest bell. I got up. The bell’s clanking vibrations drowned the end of Susie’s giggle. I left her doing all the things that completed the sequence over again.

“Hokey, I hate you.”

“Why now specially?”

“Susie Spinner’ll brood my birdlings day and night. My life will be addled with Susieisms.”

“Miss Spinner is a nice woman, always comes down from London with a headful of jokes to make everyone laugh—everyone but old grumpies like you.” She shook her head, gave my pillow the punch I deserved.

“All right, Hoke, long live the giggles! I do thirst for some mourning-doves, some weeping-willows round here; everything is so forcedly gay.”

Hokey’s Poem

“That’s morbid,” scolded Hokey.

“It is not morbid. Listen! Once, out in Canada, I stayed with some Indians, lived right in their own home. Primitive it was but wise. When they were hungry, they ate—happy, they sang—sleepy, they slept—when they wanted to cry, they cried torrents, vast oceans of tears that washed their miseries completely away, left their faces clear as morning.”

“Very sloppy—very uncontrolled,” said Hokey.