A Ladies' Thursday Evening Working Party supplied them with sheets, pillows and pillow-cases, blankets and coverlets (twenty-two coverlets).
The Institution, as we have seen, was intended for a War Hospital; but pending invasion, and to get our nurses accustomed to the work, there seemed no harm in admitting as our first patient a sailor from Plymouth Dock who, having paid a lengthy call at the "King of Prussia" and drunk there exorbitantly, on the way to his ship had walked over the edge of the Town Quay.

The tide being low, he had escaped drowning, but at the price of three broken ribs.
It is related of this man that early in his convalescence he sat up and demanded of the Visiting Committee (the Mayor and Miss Pescod) a translation of two texts which hung framed on the wall facing his bed.

They had been illuminated by Miss Sally Tregentil at the instance of the Vicar (a Master of Arts of the University of Oxford) -- the one, "_Parcere Subjectis_," the other, "_Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori_" "Ah," said the Mayor, with a rallying glance at Miss Pescod, "that's more than any of us know.

That's Latin!" "Excuse me," put in Dr.Hansombody, who had been measuring out a draught at the little table by the window, "I don't pretend to be a scholar; but I have made out the gist of them; and I understand them to recommend a gentle aperient in cases which at first baffle diagnosis." "Ah!" was the Mayor's only comment.
"I don't profess mine to be more than a free rendering," went on the little apothecary.

"The Latin, as you would suppose, puts it more poetically." "Talking of texts," said the patient, leaning back wearily on his pillow, "there was a woman somewhere in the Bible who put her head out of window and recommended for every man a damsel or two and a specified amount of needlework.