“Surely with all the wars and rumours of wars all over the world, a little mare tact could have been displayed by the powers that be to keep the peace in the very centre of a British Protectorate.”—­Leader (East Africa).

The quality desired would appear to be the East African equivalent of horse sense.

* * * * *

MORE REPRISALS.

That ass Ellis is a poor creature, and, like the poor, he is always with me.  I think he is a punishment inflicted upon me for some past error.

A short time ago I caught the “flu.”  Naturally the first person I suspected was Ellis, but I am bound to confess that I have not been able to prove it.  Indeed, when he followed me to hospital two days later and was put in the next bed, I felt justified in exonerating him altogether.

The first remark that he made, when he reached that stage of the complaint where you feel like making remarks, illustrates just the kind of man he is.  He accused me of giving the thing to him!

I answered his outburst with the scorn it deserved.

“Preposterous,” I said.

I added a few apposite remarks, to which he responded as best he could.  But, medically speaking, I was two days senior to him, so that when the Sister heard the uproar and bustled up it was he who was forbidden to speak.  She then proceeded to clinch the matter by inserting a thermometer in his mouth.  I defy any man to argue under such a handicap.

I finished all I had to say and relapsed into an expectant silence.  The Sister returned after a time, read the instrument and retired without a word.  As she passed my bed I saw out of the corner of my eye that Ellis was watching feverishly.  An inspiration seized me.  I stopped her, and in a low voice asked if she had fed her rabbits.  Sister isn’t allowed to keep rabbits, but she does.  As I hoped, she put a finger to her lips, nodded and walked away.

“Poor old man,” I murmured vaguely to the ward in general.  “A hundred-and-seven and still rising!  Poor old Ellis!”

Ellis gave a little moan and collapsed under the bedclothes.

An hour later Burnett went his round.  Burnett isn’t the doctor, at least not the official one.  I must tell you something about Burnett.

He is the grandfather of the ward.  Though quite a young man he has grown fat through long lying in bed.  He entered hospital, I understand, towards the end of 1914, suffering from influenza.  Since then he has had a nibble at every imaginable disease, not to mention a number of imaginary ones as well.  Regularly four times a day he would waddle round the ward in his dingy old dressing-gown, discussing symptoms with every cot.  In exchange for your helping of pudding he would take your temperature and let you know the answer, and for a bunch of grapes he would tell you the probable course of your complaint and the odds against complete recovery.  No one seemed to interfere with him.  You see, Burnett was no longer a case; he was an institution.