EMMY [looking in] Sir Ralph Bloomfleld Bonington.

A long and expectant pause follows this announcement. All look to the door; but there is no SIR RALPH.

RIDGEON [at last] Where is he?

EMMY [looking back] Drat him, I thought he was following me. He’s stayed down to talk to that lady.

RIDGEON [exploding] I told you to tell that lady — [EMMY vanishes] .

WALPOLE [jumping up again] Oh, by the way, Ridgeon, that reminds me. Ive been talking to that poor girl. It’s her husband, band; and she thinks it’s a case of consumption: the usual wrong diagnosis: these damned general practitioners ought never to be allowed to touch a patient except under the orders of a consultant. [153] She’s been describing his symptoms to me; and the case is as plain as a pikestaff: bad blood-poisoning. Now she’s poor. She cant afford to have him operated on. Well, you send him to me: I’ll do it for nothing. Theres room for him in my nursing home. I’ll put him straight, and feed him up and make her happy. I like making people happy. [He goes to the chair near the window].

EMMY [looking in] Here he is.

SIR RALPH BLOOMFIELD BONINGTON wafts himself into the room. He is a tall man, with a head like a tall and slender egg. He has been in his time a slender man; but now, in his sixth decade, his waistcoat has filled out somewhat. His fair eyebrows arch goodnaturedly and uncritically. He has a most musical voice; his speech is a perpetual anthem; and he never tires of the sound of it. He radiates an enormous self-satiifaction, cheering, reassuring, healing by the mere incompatibility of disease or anxiety with his welcome presence. Even broken bones, it is said, have been known to unite at the sound of his voice: he is a born healer, as independent if mere treatment and skill as any Christian scientist. When he expands into oratory or scientific exposition, he is as energetic as WALPOLE; but it is with a bland, voluminous, atmospheric energy, which envelops its subject and its audience, and makes interruption or inattention impossible, and imposes veneration and credulity on all but the strongest minds. He is known in the medical world as B. B.; and the envy roused by his success in practice is softened by the conviction that he is, scientifically considered, a colossal humbug: the fact being that, though he knows just as much (and just as little) as his contemporaries, the qualifications that pass muster in common men reveal their weakness when hung on his egregious personality.

B. B. Aha! Sir Colenso. Sir Colenso, eh? Welcome to the order of knighthood.

RIDGEON [shaking hands] Thank you, B. B.

B . B. What! Sir Patrick! And how are we to-day? A little chilly? a little stiff? but hale and still the cleverest of us all. [SIR PATRICK grunts]. What! Walpole! the absent-minded beggar: ^{41} eh?

WALPOLE What does that mean?

B. B. Have you forgotten the lovely opera singer I sent you to have that growth taken off her vocal cords?

WALPOLE [springing to his feet] Great heavens, man, you dont mean to say you sent her for a throat operation!

B. B. [archly] Aha! Ha ha! Aha! [trilling like a lark as he shakes his finger at WALPOLE]. You removed her nuciform sac. Well, well! force of habit! force of habit! Never mind, ne-e-e-ver mind. She got back her voice after it, and thinks you the greatest surgeon alive; and so you are, so you are, so you are.

WALPOLE [in a tragic whisper, intensely serious] Blood-poisoning. I see. I see. [He sits down again].

SIR PATRICK And how is a certain distinguished family getting on under your care, Sir Ralph?

B. B. Our friend Ridgeon will be gratified to hear that I have tried his opsonin treatment on little Prince Henry with complete success.

RIDGEON [startled and anxious] But how — — —

B. B. [continuing] I suspected typhoid: the head gardener’s boy had it; so I just called at St Anne’s one day and got a tube of your very excellent serum. You were out, unfortunately.

RIDGEON I hope they explained to you carefully — — —

B. B. [waving away the absurd suggestion] Lord bless you, my dear fellow, I didnt need any explanations. I’d left my wife in the carriage at the door; and I’d no time to be taught my business by your young chaps. I know all about it. Ive handled these anti-toxins ever since they first came out.

RIDGEON But theyre not anti-toxins; and theyre dangerous unless you use them at the right time.

B. B. Of course they are. Everything is dangerous unless you take it at the right time. An apple at breakfast does you good: an apple at bedtime upsets you for a week. There are only two rules for anti-toxins. First, dont be afraid of them: second, inject them a quarter of an hour before meals, three times a day.

RIDGE ON [appalled] Great heavens, B. B., no, no, no.

B. B. [sweeping on irresistibly] Yes, yes, yes, Colly. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, you know. It was an immense success. It acted like magic on the little prince. Up went his temperature; off to bed I packed him; and in a week he was all right again, and absolutely immune from typhoid for the rest of his life. The family were very nice about it: their gratitude was quite touching; but I said they owed it all to you, Ridgeon; and I am glad to think that your knighthood is the result.

RIDGEON I am deeply obliged to you. [Overcome, he sits down on the chair near the couch].

B. B. Not at all, not at all.Your own merit. Come! come! come! dont give way.

RIDGEON It’s nothing. I was a little giddy just now. Overwork, I suppose.

WALPOLE Blood-poisoning.

B. B. Overwork! Theres no such thing. I do the work of ten men. Am I giddy? No. NO. If youre not well, you have a disease. It may be a slight one; but it’s a disease. And what is a disease? The lodgment in the system of a pathogenic germ, and the multiplication of that germ. What is the remedy? A very simple one. Find the germ and kill it.

SIR PATRICK Suppose theres no germ?

B. B. Impossible, Sir Patrick: there m u s t be a germ: else how could the patient be ill?

SIR PATRICK Can you shew me the germ of overwork?

B. B. No; but why? Why? Because, my dear Sir Patrick, though the germ is there, it’s invisible. Nature has given it no danger signal for us. These germs — these bacilli — are translucent bodies, like glass, like water. To make them visible you must stain them. Well, my dear Paddy, do what you will, some of them wont stain. They wont take cochineal: they wont take methylene blue; they wont take gentian violet: they wont take any coloring matter. Consequently, though we know, as scientific men, that they exist, we cannot see them. But can you disprove their existence? Can you conceive the disease existing without them? Can you, for instance, shew me a case of diphtheria without the bacillus?

SIR PATRICK No; but I’ll shew you the same bacillus, without the disease, in your own throat.

B. B. No, not the same, Sir Patrick. It is an entirely different bacillus; only the two are, unfortunately, so exactly alike that you cannot see the difference. You must understand, my dear Sir Patrick, that every one of these interesting little creatures has an imitator. Just as men imitate each other, germs imitate each other. There is the genuine diphtheria bacillus discovered by Loeffler; and there is the pseudo-bacillus, exactly like it, which you could find, as you say, in my own throat.

SIR PATRICK And how do you tell one from the other?

B. B. Well, obviously, if the bacillus is the genuine Loeffler, you have diphtheria; and if it’s the pseudo-bacillus, youre quite well. Nothing simpler. Science is always simple and always profound. It is only the half-truths that are dangerous. Ignorant faddists pick up some superficial information about germs; and they write to the papers and try to discredit science. They dupe and mislead many honest and worthy people. But science has a perfect answer to them on every point.