At one moment a small pillow had to be placed in the hollow of my patient's back if he was to be kept in that position on which I had been told his life depended. When I sent the night nurse to look for something that would serve, she was gone a quarter of an hour, in which I realized that my case was not the only case in the Hospital. For a quarter of an hour I had to kneel by his bed with my two arms thrust together under the hollow of his back, supporting it. I had nothing at hand that was small enough or firm enough but my arms. That night I would have given everything I possess, and everything I have ever done, to have been a trained nurse. To make matters worse, I had an atrocious cough, acquired at the Hotel de la Poste. The chemist had made up some medicine for it, but the poor busy dispensary clerk had forgotten to send it to my room. I had to stop it by an expenditure of will when I wanted every atom of will to keep my patient quiet and send him to sleep, if possible, without his morphia _piqures_. He is only to have one if he is restless or in pain. And to-night he wanted more than ever to talk when he woke. And his conversation in the night is even more lacerating than his conversation in the day. For all the time, often in pain, always in extreme discomfort, he is thinking of other people. First of all he asked me if I had any books, and I thought that he wanted me to read to him. I told him I was afraid he mustn't be read to, he must go to sleep. And he said: "I mean for you to read yourself--to pass the time." He is afraid that I shall be bored by sitting up with him, that I shall tire myself, that I shall make my cough worse. He asks me if I think he will ever be well enough to play games. That is what he has always wanted to do most. And then he begins to tell me about his mother. He tells me things that I have no right to put down here. There is nothing that I can do for him but to will. And I will hard, or I pray--I don't know which it is; your acutest willing and your intensest prayer are indistinguishable. And it seems to work. I will--or I pray--that he shall lie still without morphia, and that he shall have no pain. And he lies still, without pain. I will--or I pray--that he shall sleep without morphia. And he sleeps (I think that in spite of his extreme discomfort, he must have slept the best part of the night). And because it seems to work, I will--or I pray--that he shall get well.