d in a minute afterwards were
on their way. Sloppy they left behind, relieving his overcharged breast
with a paroxysm of mangling.

At the Children's Hospital, the gallant steed, the Noah's ark, yellow
bird, and the officer in the Guards, were made as welcome as their
child-owner. But the doctor said aside to Rokesmith, 'This should have
been days ago. Too late!'

However, they were all carried up into a fresh airy room, and there
Johnny came to himself, out of a sleep or a swoon or whatever it was,
to find himself lying in a little quiet bed, with a little platform over
his breast, on which were already arranged, to give him heart and urge
him to cheer up, the Noah's ark, the noble steed, and the yellow bird;
with the officer in the Guards doing duty over the whole, quite as much
to the satisfaction of his country as if he had been upon Parade. And at
the bed's head was a coloured picture beautiful to see, representing as
it were another Johnny seated on the knee of some Angel surely who loved
little children. And, marvellous fact, to lie and stare at: Johnny had
become one of a little family, all in little quiet beds (except two
playing dominoes in little arm-chairs at a little table on the hearth):
and on all the little beds were little platforms whereon were to be
seen dolls' houses, woolly dogs with mechanical barks in them not very
dissimilar from the artificial voice pervading the bowels of the yellow
bird, tin armies, Moorish tumblers, wooden tea things, and the riches of
the earth.

As Johnny murmured something in his placid admiration, the ministering
women at his bed's head asked him what he said. It seemed that he wanted
to know whether all these were brothers and sisters of his? So they told
him yes. It seemed then, that he wanted to know whether God had brought
them all together there? So they told him yes again. They made out then,
that he wanted to know whether they would all get out of pain? So they
answered yes to that question likewise, and made him understand that the
reply included himself.

Johnny's powers of sustaining conversation were as yet so very
imperfectly developed, even in a state of health, that in sickness they
were little more than monosyllabic. But, he had to be washed and tended,
and remedies were applied, and though those offices were far, far more
skilfully and lightly done than ever anything had been done for him in
his little life, so rough and short, they would have hurt and