This mood did not last long.  I had to run down the house and tell the world the good news.  The grown-up people rebuked my joyousness, while admitting that it might be as well that I should have the measles then as later on.  In spite of their air of resignation I could hardly sit still for excitement.  I wanted to go into the kitchen and show my measles to the servants, but I was told to stay where I was in front of the fire while my bed was moved into my brother’s room.  So I stared at the glowing coals till my eyes smarted, and dreamed long dreams.  I would be in bed for days, all warm from head to foot, and no one would interrupt my pleasant excursions in the world I preferred to this.  If I had heard of the beneficent microbe to which lowed my happiness, I would have mentioned it in my prayers.

Late that night, I called over to my brother to ask how long measles lasted.  He told me to go to sleep, so that I knew he did not know the answer to my question.  I lay at ease tranquilly turning the problem over in my mind.  Four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks; why, if I was lucky, it would carry me through to the holidays!  At all events, school was already very far away, like a nightmare remembered at noon.  I said good-night to my brother, and received an irritated grunt in reply.  I did not mind his surliness; tomorrow when I woke up, I would begin my dreams.

II

When I found myself in bed in the morning, already sick at heart because even while I slept I could not forget the long torment of my life at school, I would lie still for a minute or two and try to concentrate my shuddering mind on something pleasant, some little detail of the moment that seemed to justify hope.  Perhaps I had some money to spend or a holiday to look forward to; though often enough I would find nothing to save me from realising with childish intensity the greyness of the world in which it was my fate to move.  I did not want to go out into life; it was dull and gruel and greasy with soot.  I only wanted to stop at home in any little quiet corner out of everybody’s way and think my long, heroic thoughts.  But even while I mumbled my hasty breakfast and ran to the station to catch my train the atmosphere of the school was all about me, and my dreamer’s courage trembled and vanished.

When I woke from sleep the morning after my good fortune, I did not at first realise the extent of my happiness; I only knew that deep in my heart I was conscious of some great cause for joy.  Then my eyes, still dim with sleep, discovered that I was in my brother’s bedroom, and in a flash the joyful truth was revealed to me.  I sat up and hastily examined my body to make sure that the rash had not disappeared, and then my spirit sang a song of thanksgiving of which the refrain was, “I have the measles!” I lay back in bed and enjoyed the exquisite luxury of thinking of the evils that I had escaped.  For once my morbid sense of atmosphere was a desirable