Then I must be up and away. I had a good deal of work to do and
a number of people to see on important business, and I could not
really afford to waste more than a weekend on the staff of St.
Germicide's. After Monday they must look to their own devices for
social entertainment. That was my idea. Now when I look back on
it I laugh, but it is a hollow laugh and there is no real merriment
in it.

Indeed, almost from the moment of my entrance little things began
to come up that were calculated to have a depressing effect on
one's spirits. Downstairs a serious-looking lady met me and entered
in a book a number of salient facts regarding my personality which
the previous investigators had somehow overlooked. There is a lot
of bookkeeping about an operation. This detail attended to, a
young man, dressed in white garments and wearing an expression
that stamped him as one who had suffered a recent deep bereavement
came and relieved me of my hand bag and escorted me upstairs.

As we passed through the upper corridors I had my first introduction
to the hospital smell, which is a smell compounded of iodoform,
ether, gruel, and something boiling. All hospitals have it,
I understand. In time you get used to it, but you never really
care for it.

The young man led me into a small room tastefully decorated with
four walls, a floor, a ceiling, a window sill and a window, a door
and a doorsill, and a bed and a chair. He told me to go to bed.
I did not want to go to bed--it was not my regular bedtime--but
he made a point of it, and I judged it was according to regulations;
so I undressed and put on my night clothes and crawled in. He