e you the things
which the taskmistress had sent you to fetch (or would drop a kindly
hint as to where and by what means you could acquire them). The Dirty
Linen Store orderly who declined to accept your plea for forgiveness
when you had been obtuse enough to see a fomentation-wringer in a
teacloth, could devastate the harmony of a whole forenoon. A sweet
reasonableness was undoubtedly the note to strike when such a
contretemps occurred.

Having got quit of the last item in your bundle, you returned to the
ward to attend to other (and generally less entertaining) duties until
such time as it was proper to repair to the Clean Linen Store. The staff
of the Clean Linen Store, a huge department whose system of book-keeping
is enough to make the brain reel (for here sheets, etc., are dealt with
not in dozens but in thousands), had in the interim received your chit
from their colleagues of the Dirty Linen Store. These latter, rashly or
otherwise, had guaranteed its accuracy by initialing it. Accordingly, in
the Clean Linen Store, a fresh bundle was ready for your acceptance, its
contents consisting of duplicates of the objects now on their way to the
laundry.

It was unwise, however, to accept this neatly folded and virginal bundle
without investigation. It might contain what the chit demanded; or it
might not. Before you could carry it off you must yourself initial, and
finally bid farewell to, the chit: thereby certifying that you had got
what you claimed. To make sure of this you would be well advised to undo
the bundle, and (as far as was practicable in a jostling crowd of
fellow-orderlies similarly employed) run through the whole of its
contents, computing them with precision: twenty sheets, twelve
pillow-cases, nine bolster-cases--it is only too easy to miss the
difference in the sizes of these--seventeen hand-towels, two
operating-aprons, eleven handkerchiefs, ten pyjama trousers, ten
sleeping-jackets, and so on. When you had ticked-off all these separate
items in the list you scribbled your initials thereon and fled with your
bundle--to find, as often as not, that Sister, sorting the things into
her cupboard, could discover a mistake after all. This meant a humble
return to the Clean Linen Store to beg for the mistake's rectification;
and the sergeant in charge had merely to take your chit from his file,
and show you your own initials on it, to prove that you were in the
wrong.

It is conceivable that by means of