ed horror. "Boys!" he
announced, "it says 'ere there's a shortage of timber!"

Guffaws greeted this sally. Everyone saw the innuendo at once--everyone
except the clergyman, and when he grasped the point, that Ol' Chum
So-and-So was on the Danger List and a shortage of timber was supposed
to imply that he might be done out of a coffin, he was visibly shocked.
Perhaps he did not understand cockney humour.... However, one may add
that our irrepressible friend, at the moment of writing, is off the
Danger List (albeit only after a protracted struggle with the Enemy at
whom he jeered), and is now contriving to be as funny about life as he
was funny--and fearless--about Death.

I caught sight to-day of another cockney acquaintance of mine, whose
Christian name is Bill, trundling himself down the hospital drive in a
wheeled chair. Perched on the knee of his one leg, with its feet planted
on the stump which is all that is left of the other, was his child, aged
four. Beside him walked his wife, resplendent in a magenta blouse and a
hat with green and pink plumes.

The trio looked happy, and Mrs. Bill's gala attire was symbolical. When
Bill was in my ward he too was on the Danger List. I remember that when
he first came to us, before his operation, and before he took a turn for
the worse, his wife visited him in that same magenta blouse (or another
equally startling) and that for some reason she and "Sister" did not
quite hit it off, "had words," and subsequently for a period were not on
speaking terms. Later, when Bill underwent his operation, and began to
sink, his bed was moved out on to the ward's verandah. Here his wife
(now wearing a subdued blouse) sat beside him, hour after hour, while
little Bill, the child, towed a cheap wooden engine up and down the
grass patch, oblivious to the ordeal through which his parents were
passing. It was my business, as orderly, to intrude at intervals upon
the scene on the verandah, to bring Bill such food as he was able to
tolerate. On the first occasion, after Bill's collapse, that I prepared
to take him a cup of tea, Sister stopped me. "Don't forget to take tea,
and some bread and butter, to that poor woman. She looks tired. And some
milk for the child." "Very good, Sister." I cut bread-and-butter, and
filled an extra mug of tea. "Orderly! What are you doing?" Sister had
reappeared. And I was rebuked because I was going to offer Mrs. Bill her
tea in a tin mug (the patients all have tin