Bring back from the
Clean Linen Store three dusters instead of the four dusters which you
previously handed in at the Dirty Linen Store, and your cupboard will,
to the end of time, be short of one duster which it should have
possessed. Even if Sister fails to pounce promptly on the evidence of
the loss, the quartermaster's dread stocktaking will ultimately find you
out. Your cupboard declines to correspond with his book-entries. And
there is trouble brewing, in consequence. (But indeed, if the loss of a
single duster were the sole crime revealed on stocktaking day, you would
be fortunate.)
The orderly, with an obese bundle of washing on his back, plods from the
ward to the Dirty Linen Store at quarter to nine every morning. I say he
"plods" because the bundle is generally too heavy for transportation at
a rapid pace. Twenty sheets are usually but a part of the bundle; and
twenty sheets are alone no light burden. Between his teeth--both his
hands being occupied with the balancing of the bundle--he carries his
chit: that indispensable list. Arrived at the store he dumps the bundle
on the ground, opens it, and pitches its contents piecemeal over a
counter to one of the staff of the store.
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