Out in the Winnipeg hospital, where I had an attack of pneumonia for a change, another patient was enjoying the weird pleasures that only delirium tremens can furnish the devotees of Bacchus. He would insist on visiting me, and quickly ascertaining that the arm of a big chair was loose, always grabbed it, and the way he slashed it around was a caution. I had plenty of exercise dodging that chair-arm without leaving my bed. Of course, he wouldn’t have hit me for the world, but people with the D. T.’s have a largely distorted vision, and I didn’t know exactly at what juncture he would mistake my pillow for a whale or myself for a fiery dragon. He compromised when the matron came in, and led him out by the ear, notwithstanding his incessant pleading that he owned the hospital, and that I was to be Queen of the May. So you see, even illness has its compensating advantages. Of course other accidents happened to me and there was no hospital to give treatment. A broken foot in a football game, a broken finger at cricket, and a couple of broken ribs in a bath-tub were amongst them. The latter occurred on a fine Sunday morning when I was getting ready to go to the train to meet Miss Agnes Laut, the well-known Canadian writer, who was then living in New York. A piece of soap—now I know why so many hate soap—and kerflump I went against the side of the porcelain tub. It pained a good deal, but I didn’t know the full meaning of my mishap until evening when the doctor came and telling me I had two broken ribs, proceeded to put that part of my body in plaster. Just then I remembered an appointment made with Brent Macnab for next day, and sent a note that I had been laid up with a couple of broken ribs and informing him that: “While it’s not as bad a smash as that of the Ville Marie bank, I was in plaster and never felt so stuck up in my life.” Which made Brent snicker. Down in Washington Washington, the capital of the great United States, is one of the finest cities in the Union. It is well laid out, has fine residential and business sections, and the Capitol itself occupies a commanding position. The city is the great political centre of the Republic and a swell social centre as well. It is a pleasant place to visit, especially if one has lots of friends like I have—the boys of the press gallery and some who are just ordinary, and a few who are not ordinary statesmen. Before the Civil war, it was an almost entirely southern city—but of course it is not now.