Some one must have been very kind, for there were
doctors, and a blue-and-white striped nurse, and bottles
and things. There was even a vase of perky carnations--
scarlet ones. I discovered that they had a trick of
nodding their heads, saucily. The discovery did not
appear to surprise me.

"Howdy-do!" said I aloud to the fattest and reddest
carnation that overtopped all the rest. "How in the
world did you get in here?"

The striped nurse (I hadn't noticed her before) rose
from some corner and came swiftly over to my bedside,
taking my wrist between her fingers.

"I'm very well, thank you," she said, smiling, "and
I came in at the door, of course."

"I wasn't talking to you," I snapped, crossly, "I was
speaking to the carnations; particularly to that elderly
one at the top--the fat one who keeps bowing and wagging
his head at me."

"Oh, yes," answered the striped nurse, politely, "of
course. That one is very lively, isn't he? But suppose
we take them out for a little while now."

She picked up the vase and carried it into the
corridor, and the carnations nodded their heads more