Have you ever been left at a strange hospital in the afternoon or evening of a cold, gloomy day, to be prepared for an operation early next morning? It starts the goose flesh on me even now when I recall seeing the door close behind my family as they left the room when the visitors’ hours were over. I was alone--and lonesome. Here is where the stern realities of life press down hard upon you and you call in all the reserves of your courage to meet them. It is a case where a fellow is almost justified in feeling sorry for himself. I felt as I imagine poor old Philoctetes must have felt when his companions sailed away and abandoned him on the deserted Island of Lemnos, there to nurse his snake-bitten ankle in painful solitude. I was even worse off than Philoctetes: I didn’t have so much as a pain to keep me company. In a few minutes an attractive nurse came in and looked me over with a quick appraising eye. “I’m to be your day nurse,” she said. “Thank you,” I said; “I hope you’ll like me.” She said she’d be on duty till seven, and come back at seven in the morning. For my “supper” she said I might have a “light tray”; then she went out. Presently she returned, bringing a tray with a miniature dish of light cereal. That was all the rules permitted me to have. It was carefully concealed beneath a white napkin, probably to keep the aerial bacilli from nesting in it on the way in. When I had eaten it I glanced up with an eager, hungry look, in comparison with which Oliver Twist must have appeared contentedly well fed. “Next course,” I said, with a maudlin attempt at facetiousness. She shook her head. “You’ve had all the rules allow. I’m sorry, but--” “But you’re not sorry enough to give me any more--is that it?” “Your next course will be castor oil.” “But I’ve already had it--bottles of it!” I protested. “It’s all they’ve fed me the past ten days.” That made no difference; the orders called for it, and there was no alternative but to take it. “I _hate_ the damn stuff!--Haven’t you some substitute?” I pleaded. “There is no substitute,” she said with an air of finality that closed the argument.