Already I loathe the Two Hundred. Not that I believe for a minute the story of my own disease being the same as their miserable little complaints. In recurring periods of conscious thought I go through the list of things I know for a fact I have got--rheumatic fever, sciatica, lumbago, toothache, neuritis, bronchitis, laryngitis, tonsilitis, neuralgia, gastritis, catarrh of several kinds, heart disease and inflammation (or possibly congestion) of the lungs. I shall think of some more presently, if my nurse will let me alone and not keep on worrying me with her "Just drink this." Bother the woman! Why doesn't she get off the earth? What's the use of my swallowing that man's filthy medicine when he doesn't know what's the matter with me? I hate everybody and everything, especially the eider-down quilt, which rises in slow billows in front of my eyes and threatens to engulf me. When in a paroxysm of fury I suddenly cast it on the floor, it lies there still billowing, and seems to leer at me. There is something fat and sinister and German about that eiderdown. I never noticed it before. _Two Hundred German eider-downs!_ The firelight flickers weirdly about the room and I try to count the shadows. But before I begin I know the answer--TWO HUNDRED. I drift into a nightmare of Two Hundred elusive cabbages which I am endeavouring to plant in my new allotment, where a harsh fate forces me to dig and _dig_ and DIG, and, as a natural consequence, also to ache and _ache_ and ACHE. PHASE II. I can stand up with assistance from the bed-post and totter feebly to an arm-chair by the fire, where I sit in a dressing-gown and weep. What for? I couldn't say, except that it seems a fit and proper thing to do. I am still of opinion that I am not long for this world, and my favourite occupation at present is counting up the number of wreaths that I might justifiably expect to have sent to my funeral. I don't tell my nurse, who would immediately try to "cheer me up" by talking to me or giving me a magazine to look at. And I would _much_ rather count wreaths. The Smiths probably would not be able to afford one.... My thoughts are distracted by the sudden apparition of a little meal. I begin to take an interest in these little meals, which are of such frequent occurrence that I am reduced to tears again, this time at the thought of the extra expense I am causing. And all for nothing. Why don't they save the money for wreaths? The doctor comes while I am swallowing my egg, miserably yet with a certain gusto, and I dry my eyes hastily as I hear him bounding up the stairs. "Hullo," he calls out before he is well through the door, "how are we to-day, eh? Beginning to sit up and take notice? I think we'll change your medicine." "_I_ think," I remark resignedly, "that it will be best for someone to dig a hole and bury me."