o watch the keen interest
with which the audience followed the diversions of "Dr. Sandy" with the
bottle.

I have been concerned in "doing something" in our day nurse's album
lately (I think I have already alluded to the presence of the album evil
out here). I have willingly volunteered to contribute to these volumes,
hoping to see their contents, but, alas, in most cases I have had to
start the tome; however, in the present case the album has been well
started by various patients. Most of the efforts are strikingly original
and all in verse, so I determined to do something for the honour of the
county of my birth, and, securing a pen and ink, perpetrated some
Michael Angelic-like sketches of "the-ministering-angel-thou," order.
Then, hearing that a poem (scratch a Tommy and you'll find a poet) was
expected, valiantly started off with something like this:

"She wore a cape of scarlet,
The eve when first we met;
A gown of grey was on her form
(I wore some flannelette!):
She was a sister to us all,
And yet no relation;
She stuck upon my dexter leg,
A hot fomentation."

But appearing suggestive of something else, I crossed it out and finally
produced the following ambitious ode:--

THE GREAT PANACEA.

Poets from time of yore have sung
In every clime and every tongue,
Of beauty and the pow'r of love,
Of things on earth and things above.

Sonnets to ladyes' eyes indited,
And for such stuff been killed or knighted.
They've raved on this and raved on that,
The dog or the domestic cat.

On blessed peace and glorious war,
On deeds of daring dashed with gore,
And scores of other wondrous deeds,
Which History or Tradition heeds.

But I would humbly sing to praise
Something unhonoured in those lays--
The cure for broken legs and arms,
For suff'rers of rheumatic qualms.

For wounds by bullet or the knife,
Obtained in peace or deadly strife;
For broken heads or sprained toes,
And myriad other sorts of woes,
For that incurable disease
"Fed up" or "tired of C.I.V.'s."

For pom-pom fever, Mauseritis,
The toothache or the loafertitis.
For broken heart or broken nose,
For every sickness science knows.

All these and ev'ry other ill,
Are cured by that well-known Pill;
'Tis made on earth with pow'rs divine,
I sing in praise of _Number Nine_.

To expatiate further upon the famous "No. 9 Pill" would be absurd, as it
is as great an inst