Toby was even more mythical than Susan’s aunt; she was based on certain authentic facts, whereas Toby was solely the creation of a dog-adoring little brain.  But no one was ever inconsiderate enough to hint at his airy fabrication; and Margaret MacLean always inquired after him every morning with the same interest that she bestowed on the other occupants of Ward C.

Last in the ward came Michael, a diminutive Russian exile with valvular heart trouble and a most atrocious vocabulary.  The one seemed as incurable as the other.  Margaret MacLean had wrestled with the vocabulary on memorable occasions—­to no avail; and although she had long since discovered it was a matter of words and not meanings with him, it troubled her none the less.  And because Michael came the nearest to being the black sheep of this sanitary fold she showed for him always an unfailing gentleness.

“Good morning, dear,” she said, running her fingers through the perpendicular curls that bristled continuously.

“Goot mornun, tear,” he mimicked, mischievously; and then he added, with an irresistible smile, “Und Got-tam-you.”

“Oh, Michael, don’t you remember, the next time you were going to say ’God bless you’?”

“Awright—­next time.”

Margaret MacLean sighed unconsciously.  Michael’s “next time” was about as reliable as the South American manana; and he seemed as much an alien now as the day he was brought into the ward.  And then, because she believed that kindness was the strongest weapon for victory in the end, she did the thing Michael loved best.

Ward C was turned into a circus menagerie, and Margaret MacLean and her assistant were turned into keepers.  Together they set about the duties for the day with great good-humor.  Two seals, a wriggling hippopotamus, a roaring polar bear, a sea-serpent of surprising activities, two teeth-grinding alligators, a walrus, and a baby elephant were bathed with considerable difficulty and excitement.  It was Sandy who insisted on being the elephant in spite of a heated argument from the other animals that, having a hump, he ought to be a camel.  They forgave him later, however, when he squirted forth his tooth-brush water and trumpeted triumphantly, thereby causing the entire menagerie to squirm about and bellow in great glee.

At this point the head keeper had to turn them all back instantly into children, and she delivered a firm but gentle lecture on the inconsiderateness of soaking a freshly changed bed.

Sandy broke into penitent tears; and because tears were never allowed to dampen the atmosphere of Ward C when they could possibly be dammed, Margaret MacLean did the “best-of-all-things.”  She pushed the cribs and cots all together into a “special” with observation-cars; then, changing into an engineer, and with a call to Toby to jump aboard, she swung herself into the caboose-rocker and opened the throttle.  The bell rang; the whistle tooted; and the engine gave a final snort and puff, bounding away countryward where spring had come.