All the walls in the building were whitewashed and washable. Yes. The water taps were huge, they were meant to be worked with the elbows for reasons of cleanliness. And rinsing apparatus had been installed for washing the milk-bottles. One passed first through the reception room, which was empty save for a couple of disused beds and the surgeons' bicycles. In the adjoining preparation room there were, besides the writing-table and the stand with the students' white coats, a kind of folding table with oil-cloth cushions, an operating-table, a cupboard of provisions, and a trough-shaped perambulator. Klaus Heinrich paused at the provisions and asked for the recipes for the preparations to be explained to him. Doctor Sammet thought to himself that if the whole tour was going to be made with such attention to details, a terrible lot of time would be wasted. Suddenly a noise was heard in the street. An automobile drove up tooting and stopped in front of the building. Cheers were heard distinctly in the preparation room, for all that it was only children that were shouting. Klaus Heinrich did not pay any particular attention to the incident. He was looking at a box of sugar of milk, which, by the way, had nothing striking about it. "A visitor apparently," he said. "Oh, of course, you said somebody was coming. Let's go on." The party proceeded to the kitchen, the milk-kitchen, the big boiler-fitted room for the preparing of milk, the place where full milk, boiled milk, and buttermilk were kept. The daily rations were set on clean white tables in little bottles side by side. The place smelt sourish and sickly. Klaus Heinrich gave his undivided attention to this room also. He went so far as to taste the buttermilk, and pronounced it excellent. How the children must thrive, he considered, on buttermilk like that. During this inspection the door opened and Miss Spoelmann entered between the sister and Countess Löwenjoul, followed by the three nurses. The coat, toque, and muff which she was wearing to-day were made of the costliest sable, and her muff was suspended on a golden chain set with coloured stones. Her black hair showed a tendency to fall in smooth locks over her forehead. She took in the room at a glance; her eyes were really almost unbecomingly big for her little face, they dominated it like a cat's, save that they were black as anthracite and spoke a pleading language of their own.... Countess Löwenjoul, with a feather hat and dressed neatly and not without distinction, as usual, smiled in a detached sort of way. "The milk-kitchen," said the sister; "this is where the milk is cooked for the children." "So one would have supposed," answered Miss Spoelmann. She said it quickly and lightly, with a pout of her lips and a little haughty wag of her head. Her voice was a double one; it consisted of a lower and a higher register, with a break in the middle.