LADIES-IN-WAITING
on the little mongrel curs that gather with the crowd in the streets?
Her name, Chittenden-Ffollette, is of as vital importance as her medical-journal malady. When the third floor is in dire confusion; when Mrs. Parks has hysterics and Miss Simmons is crying for her mother, and Mrs. Bell’s hot-water bottle has burst in the bed, and Miss Phipps has discovered that the undergraduate has bandaged the wrong ankle, Miss Blossom sometimes becomes flustered and hurried and calls her patient Mrs. Follett, whereupon she says, “Chittenden-Ffollette, if you please!”
If by any chance she sees the Chittenden-Ffollette without the hyphen in the Nurses’ Bedside Record Book or scribbled on the morning paper she does n’t need any stimulant the rest of the day. The omission of the hyphen sends up her pulse and temperature to the required point for several hours, though there is always a reaction afterward. I’ve told Dr. Levi that I should name one of her complaints hyphenitis. The occasional
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