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common room. It seems she was a devotee of some book on improving the sight by certain exercises, done daily, and had been doing these faithfully and with good results, so she said, for two years. We used to watch her amusedly and fascinatedly and her good humour at our caustic remarks was a joy. It ended by several others joining the exercises-all of them to all appearances candidates for an asylum. Of Mr. Binks I should also say that he had an Australian kind of humour, but the husband of anyone with such a singing voice as his good lady might be forgiven ahnost anything. I remember his "humorous" (to him) remarks on the name Van Dyke. "It's a very good name," said Van Dyke's mother-"In fact quite as good as Binks!" This brought the inspiration:
Binks, Thinks, Van Dyke stinks, Van Dyke, the sphinx, Blinks - - Winks.
Binks had his little secret pile of twigs and sticks to light a little fire on the hillside and recook his food. These stocks were found and stolen for the common pot on several occasions when we were hard up for fire wood. He probably had a good idea where they went, but he never cheeped about his loss, and I will say this of him, that he never baulked at the dirtiest kind of jobs. This reminds me of my own particular communal job. The bungalow committee gave me a light job because of the three children, but how I dreaded it. It was to clean the bathroom floor on Sunday morning. The bathroom floor was level so that the water could not be sloshed on to flow of its own accord out of the drain. There was a drain hole several inches higher than the floor. This meant there was nothing for it but a rag to wipe the floor-"Mopping up" exercises! We had no disinfectant and the flush leaked. The only cleaner for the
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