“Good evening, sister!” said one man after another, even one who had laid with his eyes closed for an hour or more, with a look of death on his face.

She knelt down beside each one, saying, “How are you tonight?” and chatting in a low voice, inaudible to the bed beyond. From one bed I heard a boy’s voice say: “Oh, don’t go yet, sister! You have only given me two minutes, and I want ten, at least. I am passionately in love with you, you know, and I have been waiting all day for your beauty!”

There was a gust of laughter in the ward.

“The child is at it again!” said one of the officers.

“When are you going to write me another sonnet?” asked the nurse. “The last one was much admired.”

“The last one was rotten,” said the boy. “I have written a real corker this time. Read it to yourself, and don’t drop its pearls before these swine.”

“Well, you must be good, or I won’t read it at all.”