But Bill had
his own ideas of the humorous, and maybe his own no less definite ideas
of dignity. In this latter virtue I counted the fact that although once
or twice, when he was very low, he gave way to a little fretting to me,
he never, I am convinced, let fall one querulous word in the presence of
his wife. She sat by her husband's side, and when things were at their
worst the two said naught. The wife numbly watched her Bill's face,
turning now and then to glance at the activities of little Bill with his
engine, or to smile her thanks to the patients who sometimes came and
gave the child pickaback rides. When I intruded, I knew I was
interrupting the communings of a loving and happily married pair; and
the "slangings" of each other which signalised Bill's recovery and his
wife's relief, did nothing to shake my certitude that, like many slum
dwellers, they owned a mutual esteem which other couples, of superior
station, might envy.
Personally I have never known a cockney patient who did not evoke
affection; and as a matter of curiosity I have been asking a number of
Sisters whether they liked to have cockneys in their wards.
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