As a set-off against Titherington’s thoughtlessness and McMeekin’s imbecility, I noticed that during the day the nurse became gradually less obnoxious. I began to see that she had some good points and that she meant well by me, though she still did things of which I could not possibly approve. She insisted, for instance, that I should wash my face, a wholly unnecessary exertion which exhausted me greatly and might easily have given me cold. Still I disliked her less than I did before, and felt, toward evening that she was becoming quite tolerable. I always like to give praise to any one who deserves it, especially if I have been obliged previously to speak in a different way. After I got into bed I congratulated her on the improvement I had noticed in her character and disposition. She replied that she was delighted to see that I was beginning to pick up a little. The idea in her mind evidently was that no change had taken place in her but that I was shaking off a mood of irritable pessimism, one of the symptoms of my disease. I did not argue with her though I knew that she was quite wrong. There really was a change in her and I had all along kept a careful watch over my temper. The day after that, being, I believe, the eighth of my illness, I got up at eleven o’clock and put on a pair of trousers under my dressing-gown. McMeekin, backed by the nurse, insisted on my sending for a barber to shave me. I did not like the barber, for, like all his tribe, he was garrulous and I had to appeal to the nurse to stop him talking. Afterward I was very glad I had endured him. Lalage and Hilda called on me at two o’clock, and I should not have liked them to see me in the state I was in before the barber came. They both looked fresh and vigorous. Electioneering evidently agreed with them. “We looked in,” said Lalage, “because we thought you might want to be cheered up a bit. You can’t have many visitors now that poor Tithers is gone.” “Dead?” “Oh, no, not yet at least, and we hope he won’t. Tithers means well and I daresay it’s not his fault if he don’t speak the truth.” “They’ve put him in prison, I suppose. I hardly thought they’d allow him to chop up Selby-Harrison in the College Park.” Hilda gaped at me. Lalage went over to the nurse and whispered something in her ear. The nurse shook her head and said that my temperature was normal. “If you’re not raving,” said Lalage, “you’re deliberately talking nonsense. I don’t know what you mean, nor does Hilda.” “It ought to be fairly obvious,” I said, “that I’m alluding to Mr. Titherington’s attempt to find out Hilda’s surname from young Selby-Harrison.” Hilda giggled convulsively. Then she got out her pocket handkerchief and choked. “Tithers,” said Lalage, “is past caring about anybody’s name. He’s got influenza. It came on him the night before last at twelve o’clock. He’s pretty bad.”