d no strangers, and no one
not in uniform--unless you count the men too ill to don their blue
slops: these had been brought in dressing-gowns or wrapped in blankets.
No mere haphazard audience, this, of anybody and everybody who chooses
to pay at a turnstile! Entrance to this hall is free ... but the price
is beyond money, all the same.

A family party it was, decidedly. Thick fumes of tobacco smoke uprose
from it. (Shall we ever abandon the cigarette habit, now?) Orderlies
continued to arrive and stow themselves discreetly in corners: by some
strange providence each orderly had found that for a while he could be
spared from ward or office. Staff-Sergeants, Sergeants,
Corporals--mysteriously they made time to leave their various
departments. Even a bevy of masseuses (those experts eternally on the
rush from ward to ward) had peeped in to see the nigger minstrels. And
everybody was pleased: every jest and every conundrum got its laugh,
every ballad its applause. Not that we ever "give the bird" to those
who come to amuse us. Offer us skill in any shape or form--pierrots,
niggers, pianist, violinist, conjurer, ventriloquist, dancer, reciter:
any or all of these will be appreciated warmly.

Yesterday, for the nigger minstrels, there were no empty chairs. Until,
in the midst of Part II ("A Laughable Sketch"--_vide_ the
programme--wherein female roles were doubly coy by reason of the
masculinity of their falsetto dialogue and remarkable ankles) a
messenger stole hither and thither, whispering to the orderlies, who
promptly tiptoed from the room.

A convoy of new arrivals demanded our presence.

The silent ambulances were gliding up to the entrance of the hospital.
Orderlies, fetched from their jobs and from the entertainment, lined up
in the rain to take their places in the quartettes of bearers who lifted
out the stretchers. The Assistant Matron, standing in the shelter of the
door, checked her list; the Medical Officer handed out the ward tickets;
the lady clerks from the Admission and Discharge Office took the
patients' particulars. And the bathroom became very busy.

As I started to wheel a much-bandaged warrior to his ward, the
recreation-room door opened and a burst of music-cum-essence-of-nigger
emerged on his astonished ears. I was a little doubtful as to whether
our new guest would not think his reception somewhat flippant in key.
The poor fellow was visibly suffering, and the sound of tambourines and
comedian