She saw the value of rules, and respected them, sometimes even when they were ridiculous. On a cold night in January 1856, she was by the bedside of a dying patient; whose feet she found to be stone cold. She requested an orderly to fetch a hot-water bottle immediately. He refused, on the ground that his instructions were to do nothing for a patient without directions from a medical officer. Miss Nightingale stood corrected, and trudged off to find a doctor and make requisition for the bottle in due form. On a night in the following month, there was an unusually cold east wind, with a heavy snowfall. The patients in the ward attended by a civilian doctor were exposed to the wind and complained bitterly of the cold, but the regulation supply of fuel had given out. As the Government store was closed, Miss Nightingale waived the rule about applying first to the Purveyor, and gave the doctor fuel from her private stores. Next day the civilian doctor requisitioned in due form for an extra supply of fuel. He was refused. He carried his case to the Inspector-General. That official pleaded that he could not depart from the regulations which allowed only a certain quantity of wood for each stove. But, urged the civilian, exceptional cold calls for an extra allowance. Possibly, replied the Inspector-General with exemplary gravity, but "a Board must first sit" upon the question. The civilian smiled good-humouredly, and begged the great man to supply the wood first, and let the Board sit upon it when the weather was milder. The Inspector-General consented. These little incidents[123] throw a flood of light upon the difficulties through which Miss Nightingale had to thread her way. She was a firm believer in rules; but she was one of those able administrators who have the sense to know, and the courage to act upon the knowledge, that rules sometimes exist only to be broken. [123] I take them from _Pincoffs_, pp. 58, 79.