In a surgical ward dressings are begun between four and five o’clock, but the general stir is not till five. It was customary in many wards for Sisters and nurses to provide an early cup of tea for the patients, and the Jocks and a few others had porridge. This was the time of sing-songs. Torrey-Alexander hymns were sandwiched between such cheerful ditties as ‘What’s the Matter with Father?’ and ‘Hulloa! hulloa! Who’s your Lady Friend?’ Then of course we had the inevitable ‘Little Grey Home,’ and as surely ‘Michigan’ and ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling.’ Meantime the bed patients were washing and beds were being made. The men who could get up were the last to move. If the delay became insupportable, their more active companions would tip them on to the floor—I have seen the whole bedstead turned upside down. The men themselves were great bed-makers, and one could nearly always find someone to give a hand in quite professional style. Yes, things were cheerful in the mornings, and informal too. If work was done early the Sisters and nurses had time for a private and hasty cup of coffee in one of the dug-outs, and there was time, too, for talk with the men, and always we had a cheery visit from the ‘night super,’ Sister L. As for the war—the very reason of our present estate—it was the subject least discussed. Sometimes one almost forgot that there was a war. Every private house worries and thinks more of war than any hospital ward does—or it seems so. There might be dark thoughts under all the trivial discussions, the little jokes, the conventional badinage that we carried on, but they did not appear. At eight o’clock the day staff arrived and our night was over—always, I was a little sorry. There is a vague but eternal feud between ‘the day people and the night people.’ The night staff is ‘the cat’ for the day staff. Whatever is missing—spoons, mugs, dressings, instruments—the solution of the mystery is clear—‘it’s those night people.’ The day orderlies lay on the souls of the night nurses dozens of spoons, forks, and knives. The day Sister thinks the night Sister either too easy or too harsh with her patients. It is just one of the inevitables of life. I shall think often now of those whose watch is by night—not with any pity, for it is a strange, quiet life, but a happy one. I only knew it in a rather dead season, not in the busy time when trains were coming in and patients arriving nightly. There the night staff has small time for reflection. The hours pass in a whirl of bed-baths, dressings, and settlement. But it was not my good fortune to know such nights. ‘HALLOW-E’EN.’ _THE ROMANCE OF THE BARBER._ ‘We’re much too early, John. I said we should be. There’s not a sign of a bass.’ I lifted the sail and peered across the shining water.