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have worked myself out of sorts.

BLENKINSOP. Well, it seems presumptuous of me to offer a prescription to

a great man like you; but still I have great experience; and if I might

recommend a pound of ripe greengages every day half an hour before

lunch, I'm sure youd find a benefit. Theyre very cheap.

RIDGEON. What do you say to that B. B.?

B. B. [encouragingly] Very sensible, Blenkinsop: very sensible indeed.

I'm delighted to see that you disapprove of drugs.

SIR PATRICK [grunts]!

B. B. [archly] Aha! Haha! Did I hear from the fireside armchair the

bow-wow of the old school defending its drugs? Ah, believe me, Paddy,

the world would be healthier if every chemist's shop in England were

demolished. Look at the papers! full of scandalous advertisements of

patent medicines! a huge commercial system of quackery and poison. Well,

whose fault is it? Ours. I say, ours. We set the example. We spread the

superstition. We taught the people to believe in bottles of doctor's

stuff; and now they buy it at the stores instead of consulting a medical

man.

WALPOLE. Quite true. Ive not prescribed a drug for the last fifteen

years.

B. B. Drugs can only repress symptoms: they cannot eradicate disease.

The true remedy for all diseases is Nature's remedy. Nature and Science

are at one, Sir Patrick, believe me; though you were taught differently.

Nature has provided, in the white corpuscles as you call them--in the

phagocytes as we call them--a natural means of devouring and destroying

all disease germs. There is at bottom only one genuinely scientific

treatment for all diseases, and that is to stimulate the phagocytes.

Stimulate the phagocytes. Drugs are a delusion. Find the germ of the

disease; prepare from it a suitable anti-toxin; inject it three times

a day quarter of an hour before meals; and what is the result? The

phagocytes are stimulated; they devour the disease; and the patient

recovers--unless, of course, he's too far gone. That, I take it, is the

essence of Ridgeon's discovery.

SIR PATRICK [dreamily] As I sit here, I seem to hear my poor old father

talking again.

B. B. [rising in incredulous amazement] Your father! But, Lord bless my

soul, Paddy, your father must have been an older man than you.

SIR PATRICK. Word for word almost, he said what you say. No more drugs.

Nothing but inoculation.

B. B. [almost contemptuously] Inoculation! Do you mean smallpox

inoculation?

SIR PATRICK. Yes. In the privacy of our family circle, sir, my father

used to declare his belief that smallpox inoculation was good, not only

for smallpox, but for all fevers.

B. B. [suddenly rising to the new idea with immense interest and

excitement] What! Ridgeon: did you hear that? Sir Patrick: I am more

struck by what you have just told me than I can well express. Your

father, sir, anticipated a discovery of my own. Listen, Walpole.

Blenkinsop: attend one moment. You will all be intensely interested in

this. I was put on the track by accident. I had a typhoid case and

a tetanus case side by side in the hospital: a beadle and a city

missionary. Think of what that meant for them, poor fellows! Can a

beadle be dignified with typhoid? Can a missionary be eloquent with

lockjaw? No. NO. Well, I got some typhoid anti-toxin from Ridgeon and a

tube of Muldooley's anti-tetanus serum. But the missionary jerked all

my things off the table in one of his paroxysms; and in replacing them I

put Ridgeon's tube where Muldooley's ought to have been. The consequence

was that I inoculated the typhoid case for tetanus and the tetanus

case for typhoid. [The doctors look greatly concerned. B. B., undamped,

smiles triumphantly]. Well, they recovered. THEY RECOVERED. Except for

a touch of St Vitus's dance the missionary's as well to-day as ever; and

the beadle's ten times the man he was.

BLENKINSOP. Ive known things like that happen. They cant be explained.

B. B. [severely] Blenkinsop: there is nothing that cannot be explained

by science. What did I do? Did I fold my hands helplessly and say that

the case could not be explained? By no means. I sat down and used my

brains. I thought the case out on scientific principles. I asked myself

why didnt the missionary die of typhoid on top of tetanus, and the

beadle of tetanus on top of typhoid? Theres a problem for you, Ridgeon.

Think, Sir Patrick. Reflect, Blenkinsop. Look at it without prejudice,

Walpole. What is the real work of the anti-toxin? Simply to stimulate

the phagocytes. Very well. But so long as you stimulate the phagocytes,

what does it matter which particular sort of serum you use for the

purpose? Haha! Eh? Do you see? Do you grasp it? Ever since that Ive used

all sorts of anti-toxins absolutely indiscriminately, with perfectly

satisfactory results. I inoculated the little prince with your stuff,

Ridgeon, because I wanted to give you a lift; but two years ago I

tried the experiment of treating a scarlet fever case with a sample of

hydrophobia serum from the Pasteur Institute, and it answered capitally.

It stimulated the phagocytes; and the phagocytes did the rest. That is

why Sir Patrick's father found that inoculation cured all fevers. It

stimulated the phagocytes. [He throws himself into his chair, exhausted

with the triumph of his demonstration, and beams magnificently on them].

EMMY [looking in] Mr Walpole: your motor's come for you; and it's

frightening Sir Patrick's horses; so come along quick.

WALPOLE [rising] Good-bye, Ridgeon.

RIDGEON. Good-bye; and many thanks.

B. B. You see my point, Walpole?

EMMY. He cant wait, Sir Ralph. The carriage will be into the area if he

dont come.

WALPOLE. I'm coming. [To B. B.] Theres nothing in your point:

phagocytosis is pure rot: the cases are all blood-poisoning; and the

knife is the real remedy. Bye-bye, Sir Paddy. Happy to have met you, Mr.

Blenkinsop. Now, Emmy. [He goes out, followed by Emmy].

B. B. [sadly] Walpole has no intellect. A mere surgeon. Wonderful

operator; but, after all, what is operating? Only manual labor.

Brain--BRAIN remains master of the situation. The nuciform sac is utter

nonsense: theres no such organ. It's a mere accidental kink in

the membrane, occurring in perhaps two-and-a-half per cent of the

population. Of course I'm glad for Walpole's sake that the operation

is fashionable; for he's a dear good fellow; and after all, as I always

tell people, the operation will do them no harm: indeed, Ive known the

nervous shake-up and the fortnight in bed do people a lot of good after

a hard London season; but still it's a shocking fraud. [Rising] Well,

I must be toddling. Good-bye, Paddy [Sir Patrick grunts] good-bye,

goodbye. Good-bye, my dear Blenkinsop, good-bye! Goodbye, Ridgeon. Dont

fret about your health: you know what to do: if your liver is sluggish,

a little mercury never does any harm. If you feel restless, try bromide,

If that doesnt answer, a stimulant, you know: a little phosphorus and

strychnine. If you cant sleep, trional, trional, trion--

SIR PATRICK [drily] But no drugs, Colly, remember that.

B. B. [firmly] Certainly not. Quite right, Sir Patrick. As temporary

expedients, of course; but as treatment, no, No. Keep away from the

chemist's shop, my dear Ridgeon, whatever you do.

RIDGEON [going to the door with him] I will. And thank you for the

knighthood. Good-bye.

B. B. [stopping at the door, with the beam in his eye twinkling a

little] By the way, who's your patient?

RIDGEON. Who?

B. B. Downstairs. Charming woman. Tuberculous husband.

RIDGEON. Is she there still?

Emmy [looking in] Come on, Sir Ralph: your wife's waiting in the

carriage.

B. B. [suddenly sobered] Oh! Good-bye. [He goes out almost

precipitately].

RIDGEON. Emmy: is that woman there still? If so, tell her once for all

that I cant and wont see her. Do you hear?

EMMY. Oh, she aint in a hurry: she doesnt mind how long she waits. [She

goes out].

BLENKINSOP. I must be off, too: every half-hour I spend away from my

work costs me eighteenpence. Good-bye, Sir Patrick.

SIR PATRICK. Good-bye. Good-bye.

RIDGEON. Come to lunch with me some day this week.

BLENKINSOP. I cant afford it, dear boy; and it would put me off my own

food for a week. Thank you all the same.

RIDGEON [uneasy at Blenkinsop's poverty] Can I do nothing for you?

BLENKINSOP. Well, if you have an old frock-coat to spare? you see what

would be an old one for you would be a new one for me; so remember the

next time you turn out your wardrobe. Good-bye. [He hurries out].

RIDGEON [looking after him] Poor chap! [Turning to Sir Patrick] So thats

why they made me a knight! And thats the medical profession!

SIR PATRICK. And a very good profession, too, my lad. When you know as

much as I know of the ignorance and superstition of the patients, youll

wonder that we're half as good as we are.

RIDGEON. We're not a profession: we're a conspiracy.

SIR PATRICK. All professions are conspiracies against the laity. And we

cant all be geniuses like you. Every fool can get ill; but every fool

cant be a good doctor: there are not enough good ones to go round. And

for all you know, Bloomfield Bonington kills less people than you do.

RIDGEON. Oh, very likely. But he really ought to know the difference

between a vaccine and an anti-toxin. Stimulate the phagocytes! The

vaccine doesnt affect the phagocytes at all. He's all wrong: hopelessly,

dangerously wrong. To put a tube of serum into his hands is murder:

simple murder.

EMMY [returning] Now, Sir Patrick. How long more are you going to keep

them horses standing in the draught?

SIR PATRICK. Whats that to you, you old catamaran?

EMMY. Come, come, now! none of your temper to me. And it's time for

Colly to get to his work.

RIDGEON. Behave yourself, Emmy. Get out.

EMMY. Oh, I learnt how to behave myself before I learnt you to do it.

I know what doctors are: sitting talking together about themselves when

they ought to be with their poor patients. And I know what horses are,

Sir Patrick. I was brought up in the country. Now be good; and come

along.

SIR PATRICK [rising] Very well, very well, very well. Good-bye, Colly.

[He pats Ridgeon on the shoulder and goes out, turning for a moment at

the door to look meditatively at Emmy and say, with grave conviction]

You are an ugly old devil, and no mistake.

EMMY [highly indignant, calling after him] Youre no beauty yourself. [To

Ridgeon, much flustered] Theyve no manners: they think they can say

what they like to me; and you set them on, you do. I'll teach them their

places. Here now: are you going to see that poor thing or are you not?

RIDGEON. I tell you for the fiftieth time I wont see anybody. Send her

away.

EMMY. Oh, I'm tired of being told to send her away. What good will that

do her?

RIDGEON. Must I get angry with you, Emmy?

EMMY [coaxing] Come now: just see her for a minute to please me: theres

a good boy. She's given me half-a-crown. She thinks it's life and death

to her husband for her to see you.

RIDGEON. Values her husband's life at half-a-crown!

EMMY. Well, it's all she can afford, poor lamb. Them others think

nothing of half-a-sovereign just to talk about themselves to you, the

sluts! Besides, she'll put you in a good temper for the day, because

it's a good deed to see her; and she's the sort that gets round you.

RIDGEON. Well, she hasnt done so badly. For half-a-crown she's had a

consultation with Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington and Cutler Walpole.

Thats six guineas' worth to start with. I dare say she's consulted

Blenkinsop too: thats another eighteenpence.

EMMY. Then youll see her for me, wont you?

RIDGEON. Oh, send her up and be hanged. [Emmy trots out, satisfied.

Ridgeon calls] Redpenny!

REDPENNY [appearing at the door] What is it?

RIDGEON. Theres a patient coming up. If she hasnt gone in five minutes,

come in with an urgent call from the hospital for me. You understand:

she's to have a strong hint to go.

REDPENNY. Right O! [He vanishes].

Ridgeon goes to the glass, and arranges his tie a little.

EMMY [announcing] Mrs Doobidad [Ridgeon leaves the glass and goes to the

writing-table].

The lady comes in. Emmy goes out and shuts the door. Ridgeon, who has

put on an impenetrable and rather distant professional manner, turns to

the lady, and invites her, by a gesture, to sit down on the couch.

Mrs Dubedat is beyond all demur an arrestingly good-looking young woman.

She has something of the grace and romance of a wild creature, with a

good deal of the elegance and dignity of a fine lady. Ridgeon, who is

extremely susceptible to the beauty of women, instinctively assumes

the defensive at once, and hardens his manner still more. He has an

impression that she is very well dressed, but she has a figure on which

any dress would look well, and carries herself with the unaffected

distinction of a woman who has never in her life suffered from those

doubts and fears as to her social position which spoil the manners of

most middling people. She is tall, slender, and strong; has dark

hair, dressed so as to look like hair and not like a bird's nest or a

pantaloon's wig (fashion wavering just then between these two models);

has unexpectedly narrow, subtle, dark-fringed eyes that alter her

expression disturbingly when she is excited and flashes them wide open;

is softly impetuous in her speech and swift in her movements; and is

just now in mortal anxiety. She carries a portfolio.

MRS DUBEDAT [in low urgent tones] Doctor--

RIDGEON [curtly] Wait. Before you begin, let me tell you at once that I

can do nothing for you. My hands are full. I sent you that message by my

old servant. You would not take that answer.

MRS DUBEDAT. How could I?

RIDGEON. You bribed her.

MRS DUBEDAT. I--

RIDGEON. That doesnt matter. She coaxed me to see you. Well, you must

take it from me now that with all the good will in the world, I cannot

undertake another case.

MRS DUBEDAT. Doctor: you must save my husband. You must. When I explain