Nurse is wiser on future occasions: she stows the gramophones,
when she comes on duty, where no one can tamper with them. Even so, she
may have her nerves preyed upon by eerie tinklings, impossible to locate
in the darkness; these are caused by two knives, hung from a nail fixed
high up in the rafters. By jiggling a string, which is conducted over
another rafter and down the wall to his pillow, the patient makes the
knifeblades clash. Sometimes two strings, leading to different beds,
complete this instrument of torture. After a determined search, nurse
finds one string, and, having cut it, flatters herself that she has got
the better of her enemies. Not a bit of it. She has scarcely settled in
her chair again before the tinklings recommence. The second string is in
action; and as she hunts about the ward for the source of the melody in
the ceiling, muffled convulsions of mirth, from the dim rows of beds,
furnish evidence that her naughty charges are not getting the repose
which they require and to ensure which is part of the purpose of her
presence.
A nurse who happens to be unpopular never has these pranks played upon
her.
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