Soon as the clock tolled the hour of eight in the morning, the staff-surgeon of our side of the hospital stalked into the duty cabin, where we, the assistants, were waiting to receive him. Immediately after, we set out on the morning visit, each of us armed with a little board or palette to be used as a writing-desk, an excise inkstand slung in a buttonhole, and a quill behind the ear. The large doors were thrown open, the beds neat and tidy, and the nurses "standing by." Up each side of the long wards, from bed to bed, we journeyed; notifying the progress of each case, repeating the treatment here, altering or suspending it there, and performing small operations in another place; listening attentively to tales of aches and pains, and hopes and fears, and just in a sort of general way acting the part of good Samaritans. From one ward to another we went, up and down long staircases, along lengthy corridors, into wards in the attics, into wards on the basement, and into wards below ground,--fracture wards, Lazarus wards, erysipelas wards, men's wards, officers' wards; and thus we spent the time till a little past nine, by which time the relief of so much suffering had given us an appetite, and we hurried off to the messroom to breakfast. The medical mess at Haslar is one of the finest in the service. Attached to the room is a nice little apartment, fitted up with a bagatelle-table, and boxing gloves and foils _ad libitum_. And, sure enough, you might walk many a weary mile, or sail many a knot, without meeting twenty such happy faces as every evening surrounded our dinner-table, without beholding twenty such bumper glasses raised at once to the toast of Her Majesty the Queen, and without hearing twenty such good songs, or five times twenty such yarns and original bons-mots, as you would at Haslar Medical Mess. Yet I must confess we partook in but a small degree indeed of the solemn quietude of Wordsworth's-- "--Party in a parlour cramm'd, Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, But, as you by their faces see, All silent--and all damned." I do not deny that we were a little noisy at times, and that on several occasions, having eaten and drunken till we were filled, we rose up to dance, and consequently received a _polite_ message from the inspector whose house was adjoining, requesting us to "stop our _confounded_ row;" but then the old man was married, and no doubt his wife was at the bottom of it.