Nurse Kelsey Abroad by Marjorie Norrell Page B

welfare homes, psychiatric homes and goodness knows what else, even if there aren’t as many people as we’d like to man them all. The fact remains help is available for the majority of illnesses. Here,” she gestured vaguely, “there is so little, and a need for so much. I assure you, Jane, that whatever work you’ve left you’ll find yourself — mentally and spiritually at any rate—reaping a greater reward of satisfaction with a job well done during whatever time you stay here.”
    “You seem to have enjoyed it,” Jane rejoined, smiling as Ann laughed openly.
    “Most of the time,” she admitted, “but I’m the sort of person who believes in attracting happiness by simply being happy. It sounds sort of cock-eyed, I know, but believe me, it works! But if you don’t hurry and finish your sweet ,” she added, “the taxi’ll be here before we’re ready!”
    “I won’t be a moment.” Jane spooned up the last mouthful of the delicious concoction of what tasted like nectarines, tiny grapes, slices of something which resembled apple but which she was certain was not, and the whipped-up frothy cream with which the whole had been adorned. “I shall have to watch my weight if I eat many dishes like this one,” Jane observed ruefully. “But it was absolutely wonderful.”
    “I don’t believe that bit about watching your weight at all.” Ann rose and beckoned the waiter, paying the bill and obviously asking to be told when their taxi arrived. “Like me, you belong to the ‘skinny’ breed, as my old Sister in my first hospital used to phrase it. Even if you didn’t you’d soon run off any extra ounces. You think the corridors and what-have-you are long at home. Here they seem to go on for miles and no one department connects with the next without an exercise in the use of your legs ! Still,” she gathered up her bag and gloves as the waiter beckoned them from the doorway, “I think you’ll get on like the proverbial house afire, and that you’ll enjoy every moment.”
    “I thought Dr. Lowth said this place, what is it? The Golden Fiddle, wasn’t far away?” Jane asked as the same driver who had taken Ann to the station to meet Jane ushered them into his cab.
    “That’s right,” cheerfully, getting in beside her and slamming the somewhat rickety door. “All the same, Dr. Jim wouldn’t be very pleased if we walked even that short distance without an escort, and as he’s taken the trouble to engage Larlez,” she gestured again towards the driver’s back, “to take us there, and I expect to wait for us.”
    “Can we afford it?” Jane asked outright. “Remember I don’t understand much of the rates of exchange and the value of these queer pieces of paper and coins I’ve been given. Taxis cost the earth any place, and as they’re in such short supply here I don’t suppose they’re the least expensive mode of travel.”
    “We’re not going to bother about that at present,” Ann told her as the car jerked to a halt. “Dr. Lowth has an arrangement with Larlez and his brother. I don’t know quite what it is, but he wrote some sort of medical textbook a few years before he came out here. He said once that the royalties weren’t great, but they were at least regular and sufficient to keep him in modest luxuries, one of which he counts as always having some means of transport upon which he can depend. The Branslav brothers look after his own car and our one ambulance,” she added. “Mechanically, that is.”
    Ann led the way through the lighted door, down three steps into a brilliantly lit cellar. Two youths with stringed instruments, one of them a violin, flanked an extremely pretty girl in a short, full skirt with a white blouse covered with masses of tiny frills. Behind the girl was a third youth with a drum and a tambourine. Cymbals stood on a stand beside him. As the girls made their way through the fairly crowded room to a small table in the corner, the dark-haired, pretty-featured