Shortly after the publication of “The Massage Case,” a friend asked me how I could have made such a mistake as to attribute to Elfie during her convalescence the strength to walk twenty miles in one day. I asked her to show me the passage wherein I had erred. She did so; and I read that Elfie really did walk twenty miles in the desert. I was amazed at my own stupidity, for, considering the length of time required for complete recovery from severe nervous exhaustion, it is evident that even the charm of Dr. Risedale’s society could not be expected to inspire her even temporarily with nerve-power for such a feat. I had looked steadily at the passage for a few seconds before the idea occurred to me that I might be seeing wrong. Then I scrutinised each word by the light of this suspicion, and having hit upon a correct theory, I found out the truth. It turned out that Elfie walked in the desert for twenty _minutes_, not _miles_. An erroneous impression had been conveyed to my brain through the ear; and by its disproportionate tenacity--disproportionate to my perceptive power at the moment--had prevented my receiving a new and truer impression through the eye. I was overdone at the time, and took the warning; that is to say, I rested. But many of our doctors and nurses, whose observations are of the extremest importance, are supposed to do their work in a fatigued condition, and are considered fit objects of abuse if they do it badly. Why then do they overwork themselves? The answer to this question is that they are underpaid. The butcher and the baker must always receive the reward of their labours; the doctor and the nurse must often toil for nothing, though we are aware that, in order to obtain efficiency in any profession, it is essential that that profession should be well paid. The community may object that it cannot afford to pay more than it pays at present. Can it then afford to be kept ill or made ill by ignorant interference or by erroneous notions? It would surely be cheaper in the long-run to pay to get well or to learn how not to get ill.