come?" asked Mary, and I
replied drowsily:

"No, don't. She's better to keep out of harm's way. She would be sure to
sympathize with the strikers."

"But she'll wonder where you are."

"She can't get here safely, as things are now, and the mails are all
upset. Don't write. Send a telegram in my name. Date it Chicago, and
tell her I'm detained, but that I'll go home Monday, sure."

That same night I was off in a high fever. It was days and days before I
came to myself, and then I was too weak to ask or to care how everything
was going on at home. My whole interest in life was concentrated upon
that hospital ward, and with half-closed eyes I lay there and took notes
unconsciously.

An ideal life it may seem to outsiders, but there is as much
wire-pulling, as much jealousy and scandal within the walls of one of
those big institutions, as anywhere else on this planet. It is an
epitome of the world battle, and the strugglers meet in hand-to-hand
conflict.

Nurse Dean, the head of our ward, tall and angular in form, stern and
cold in feature, was the dragon Belle had told me about, but she knew
her business, and I, for one, preferred that she should regard me simply
as a machine laid up for repairs. I did not even think her unduly severe
upon Mary, after I heard her giving that damsel "Hail Columbia" for her
carelessness in having administered the wrong medicine one whole
forenoon to Number Nine--which was myself.

If I had not made a feeble protest in her favor, "Nurse Gemmell" would
have been discharged on the spot.

I do not wish to leave the impression that Mary had not in her the
making of a fairly good nurse. She was light of foot, as well as quick
of hand, and I liked to have her do things for me; found her _aura_
agreeable, as Belle would have expressed it. Like many half-educated
people, she was very observant, but, so far as I could judge, she had
one eye on her work and the other on the lookout for flirtations. I
became quite interested in some of them.

There was the German fiddler in the next bed to mine, who could not keep
his eyes off Mary whenever she came into the ward, and once when Nurse
Dean was off duty, and she brought out her silver-plated cornet to
"toot" a little for him, he declared it was the most ravishing music he
had ever heard in his life!

I strongly suspected that the limp young artisan on the other side of me
was perfectly well enough to be discharged, but he could not brace
hi