STORY OF MR CHIPS

When he awoke, for he seemed to have been asleep, he found himself in

bed; and Merivale was there, stooping over him and smiling. “Well, you old

ruffian — feeling all right? That was a fine shock you gave us!”

Chips murmured, after a pause, and in a voice that surprised him by its

weakness: “Why — um — what — what has happened?”

“Merely that you threw a faint. Mrs. Wickett came in and found you

lucky she did. You’re all right now. Take it easy. Sleep again if you feel inclined.”

He was glad someone had suggested such a good idea. He felt so weak

that he wasn’t even puzzled by the details of the business — how they had got

him upstairs, what Mrs. Wickett had said, and so on. But then, suddenly, at the

otherside of the bed, he saw Mrs. Wickett. She was smiling. He thought: God

bless my soul, what’s she doing up here? And then, in the shadows behind

Merivale, he saw Cartwright, the new Head (he thought of him as “new,” even

though he had been at Brookfield since 1919), and old Buffles, commonly called

“Roddy”. Funny, the way they were all here. He felt: anyhow, I can’t be bothered

to wonder why about anything. I’m going to go to sleep.

But it wasn’t sleep, and it wasn’t quite wakefulness, either, it was a sort of