don't get up,' and he went away.

"I had to get up. I was very weak; I fell off my bed while dressing, and
bruised myself; but I got dressed somehow or other, and then I had to go
with the rest to chapel, where they sing hymns, dreadful hymns all out
of tune in praise of their pitiless God.

"I could hardly stand up; everything kept disappearing and coming back
faintly: and suddenly I must have fallen...." He put his hand to his
head. "I woke up feeling a pain in this ear. I was in the infirmary with
a warder by me. My hand rested on a clean white sheet; it was like
heaven. I could not help pushing my toes against the sheet to feel it,
it was so smooth and cool and clean. The nurse with kind eyes said to
me:

"'Do eat something,' and gave me some thin white bread and butter.
Frank, I shall never forget it. The water came into my mouth in streams;
I was so desperately hungry, and it was so delicious; I was so weak I
cried," and he put his hands before his eyes and gulped down his tears.

"I shall never forget it: the warder was so kind. I did not like to tell
him I was famished; but when he went away I picked the crumbs off the
sheet and ate them, and when I could find no more I pulled myself to the
edge of the bed, and picked up the crumbs from the floor and ate those
as well; the white bread was so good and I was so hungry."

"And now?" I asked, not able to stand more.

"Oh, now," he said, with an attempt to be cheerful, "of course it would
be all right if they did not take my books away from me. If they would