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

SIR PATRICK Yes. In the privacy of our circle, sir, my father used to declare his belief that pox 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, good-bye. Good-bye, my dear Blenkinsop, good-bye! Good-bye, 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 [returnins] 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.