“My Gawd! but you’re a good plucked ’un!” said P.C. Dormer. “I’m damned sorry, that I am.” His great fist closed upon the small boy’s tiny hand. It was the proudest, happiest moment Billy had ever known. Sometimes, though the Alexandra was devoted to the hip-diseases of children, other diseases found an entry; and one day, Billy, who had shown disquieting symptoms, found himself, as the nurses said “in isolation.” In other words, he was placed in a detached ward, approached by a short bridge, under the care of a nurse specially told off to watch and tend him, and perchance to catch the same disease herself. The word went round that it was “dip.” And “dip” it was. When the doctor was sure of that, Billy was treated with anti-toxin for diphtheria, and the telephone was quickly set to work. An ambulance came round--a beautiful carriage, the nurse in charge explained; and Billy--nurses nodding and smiling at a distance, with eyes that had a tearful, frightened look--was borne down the staircase and so away to Hampstead. There, in the “dip” ward of the Fever Hospital, he fought the fight with death--the students in their quaint garb looking on; and, to the surprise of all, came out victorious. Seven weeks later he was discharged, and back again in the three-pair back. There was the old grandmother, doddering still, the same, yet not the same. One grey morning, when Billy awoke, something in her appearance startled him. The poor old thing was dead; and so unsightly and alarming in his eyes that straightway he arose and fled, hopping and tapping with his crutch along the grey, deserted streets--anywhere, anywhere away from that awesome sight. How the boy lived, or starved, throughout the next few days he never realised. When at length he mustered courage to return, all that remained of “this our sister” was there no longer. The parish authorities were accustomed to these cases. The room was swept and garnished after a fashion. Already other tenants were in possession, and Billy was admonished to go about his business. Having no business, he hopped vaguely into the streets again. He had a horror now of walls and rooms. Over there in the Alexandra he had had his experiences, and outside the National, on the opposite side of the square, in the night, he had sometimes heard blood-curdling screams from epileptic patients. He shuddered--shook, as it were, the dust from his remaining foot, and hopped off towards the unexplored regions of the west.