Bubb had a temperature that evening, whether due to fright or the ill effects of potatoes fried in vaseline it was impossible to say. The doctor sent him back to the hospital at ----, a shell-stricken town where the wounded were confined to cellars before going further back from the firing line. Wrapped in blankets, Bubb went to sleep on the floor, and about one o'clock in the morning he woke up and looked around him. A candle stuck on the cold ground burned timidly and big black shadows lurked in the corners of the apartment. Opposite Bubb an R.A.M.C. orderly sat on a biscuit box dozing, the unlighted stump of a cigarette between his fingers. Near Bubb another patient lay asleep, his mouth wide open, and his knees hunched up so that they formed a little hill that dominated the cold clammy floor of the cellar. Spudhole looked up at the roof where the light played in little ghostly ripples. As he watched, a spider slipped out of a hole directly overhead and dropped slowly down towards his face. In the half light the spider looked an immense size and its legs spread out as if endeavouring to clutch something. Fascinated Bubb watched it draw nearer, nearer, until it almost touched his face. "Git out ye lobster!" He raised his hand as he spoke and aimed a blow at the insect and missed. The spider clambered up again and disappeared. "Blast the bloomin' thing!" he muttered and turned on his side. "Oh, blimey!... Good mornin'!" A large toad was sitting on the corner of his blanket, a mere hand's breadth away, and looking at him with a pair of big glistening eyes. For a moment the man and the toad looked fixedly at one another, then the toad hopped away and disappeared round the corner of the bed. "Well, blimey," said Bubb, cuddling up in the clothes and trying to sleep. He was unsuccessful for his mind followed the toad. "Where 'as it gone?" he muttered. "Spiders as big as lobsters, and toads as big as helephants. This 'ere place is 'aunted. Now where 'as that 'ere vermin gone?" He turned round on his side and again his gaze fell on the toad. The thing had ascended the hill formed by the knees of Bubb's mate, and there on the eminence it sat, its eyes fixed on the open mouth of the sleeper. "Blimey! It's goin' to jump in," said Bubb. "Raise the foresight a little you bounder and 'op!... Ten to one that you miss it." Moodily contemplative, the toad sat silent, its big shining eyes fixed on the cavern in front. "Jump, you beggar!" yelled Bubb, shouting at the top of his voice. "One good 'op and you'll score a bull." He fell into a paroxysm of mirth; the R.A.M.C. orderly awoke, rubbed his eyes, lifted the cigarette end which had fallen to the floor, put it in his mouth, and came across to Bubb. "What's amusin' you, chummy?" he asked. "The spider and the toad," said Bubb. "A big lobster of a spider and then the toad. It's tryin' to jump into the man's mouth. Look there! Ten to one it misses!"