Then Albert comes to my rescue, he is not bashful, it makes no difference to him who is upset. He calls to the sister. She turns round. “Sister, he wants⁠—” but no more does Albert know how to express it modestly and decently. Out there we say it in a single word, but here, to such a lady⁠—All at once he remembers his school days and finishes hastily: “He wants to leave the room, sister.”

“Ah!” says the sister, “but he shouldn’t climb out of his bed with plaster bandage. What do you want then?” she says turning to me.

I am in mortal terror at this turn, for I haven’t any idea what the things are called professionally. She comes to my help.

“Little or big?”

Shocking business! I sweat like a pig and say shyly: “Well, only quite a little one⁠—”

At any rate it produces the effect.