LOUIS Oh, I dont mind you calling me a scoundrel a bit. It’s only a word: a word that you dont know the meaning of. What is a scoundrel?

B. B. You are a scoundrel, sir.

LOUIS Just so. What is a scoundrel? I am. What am I? A scoundrel. It’s just arguing in a circle. And you imagine youre a man of science!

B. B. I — I — I — I have a good mind to take you by the scruff of your neck, you infamous rascal, and give you a sound thrashing.

LOUIS I wish you would. Youd pay me something handsome to keep it out of court afterwards. [B. B., baffled, flings away from him with a snort]. Have you any more civilities to address to me in my own house? I should like to get them over before my wife comes back. [He resumes his sketching].

RIDGEON My mind’s made up. When the law breaks down, honest men must find a remedy for themselves. I will not lift a finger to save this reptile.

B. B. That is the word I was trying to remember. Reptile.

WALPOLE I cant help rather liking you, Dubedat. But you certainly are a thoroughgoing specimen.

SIR PATRICK You know our opinion of you now, at all events.

LOUIS (patiently putting down his pencil] Look here. All this is no good.You dont understand.You imagine that I’m simply an ordinary criminal.

WALPOLE Not an ordinary one, Dubedat. Do yourself justice.

LOUIS Well youre on the wrong tack altogether. I’m not a criminal. All your moralizings have no value for me. I dont believe in morality. I’m a disciple of Bernard Shaw. ^{42}

LOUIS Of course I havnt the ridiculous vanity to set up to be exactly a Superman; but still, it’s an ideal that I strive towards just as any other man strives towards his ideal.

B. B. [intolerant] Dont trouble to explain. I now understand you perfectly. Say no more, please. When a man pretends to discuss science, morals, and religion, and then avows himself a follower of a notorious and avowed anti-vaccinationist, there is nothing more to be said. [Suddenly putting in an effusive saving clause in parenthesis to RIDGEON) Not, my dear Ridgeon, that I believe in vaccination in the popular sense any more than you do: I neednt tell you that. But there are things that place a man socially; and anti-vaccination is one of them. [He resumes his seat on the dais].

SIR PATRICK Bernard Shaw? I never heard of him. He’s a Methodist preacher, I suppose.

LOUIS [scandalized] No, no. He’s the most advanced man now living: he isnt anything. [162]

SIR PATRICK I assure you, young man, my father learnt the doctrine of deliverance from sin from John Wesley’s own lips before you or Mr. Shaw were born. It used to be very popular as an excuse for putting sand in sugar and water in milk. Youre a sound Methodist, my lad; only you dont know it.

LOUIS [seriously annoyed for the first time] It’s an intellectual insult. I dont believe theres such a thing as sin.

SIR PATRICK Well, sir, there are people who dont believe theres such a thing as disease either. They call themselves Christian Scientists, I believe. Theyll just suit your complaint. We can do nothing for you. [He rises]. Good afternoon to you.

LOUIS [running to him piteously] Oh dont get up, Sir Patrick. Dont go. Please dont. I didnt mean to shock you, on my word. Do sit down again. Give me another chance. Two minutes more: thats all I ask.

SIR PATRICK [surprised by this sign of grace, and a little touched] Well — [He sits down] —

LOUIS [gratefully] Thanks awfully.

SIR PATRICK [continuing] — I dont mind giving you two minutes more. But dont address yourself to me; for Ive retired from practice; and I dont pretend to be able to cure your complaint. Your life is in the hands of these gentlemen.

RIDGEON Not in mine. My hands are full. I have no time and no means available for this case.

SIR PATRICK What do you say, Mr. Walpole?

WALPOLE Oh, I’ll take him in hand: I dont mind. I feel perfectly convinced that this is not a moral case at all: it’s a physical one. Theres something abnormal about his brain. That means, probably, some morbid condition affecting the spinal cord. And that means the circulation. In short, it’s clear to me that he’s suffering from an obscure form of blood-poisoning, which is almost certainly due to an accumulation of ptomaines in the nuciform sac. I’ll remove the sac —

LOUIS [changing color] Do you mean, operate on me? Ugh! No, thank you.

WALPOLE Never fear: you wont feel anything.Youll be under an anaesthetic, of course. And it will be extraordinarily interesting.

LOUIS Oh, well, if it would interest you, and if it wont hurt, thats another matter. How much will you give me to let you do it?

WALPOLE [rising indignantly] How much! What do you mean?

LOUIS Well, you dont expect me to let you cut me up for nothing, do you?

WALPOLE Will you paint my portrait for nothing?

LOUIS No; but I’ll give you the portrait when it’s painted; and you can sell it afterwards for perhaps double the money. But I cant sell my nuciform sac when youve cut it out.

WALPOLE Ridgeon: did you ever hear anything like this! [To LOUIS] Well, you can keep your nuciform sac, and your tubercular lung, and your diseased brain: Ive done with you. One would think I was not conferring a favor on the fellow! [He returns to his stool in high dudgeon].[163]

SIR PATRICK That leaves only one medical man who has not withdrawn from your case, Mr. Dubedat.You have nobody left to appeal to now but Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington.

WALPOLE If I were you, B. B., I shouldnt touch him with a pair of tongs. Let him take his lungs to the Brompton Hospital. They wont cure him; but theyll teach him manners.

B. B. My weakness is that I have never been able to say No, even to the most thoroughly undeserving people. Besides, I am bound to say that I dont think it is possible in medical practice to go into the question of the value of the lives we save. Just consider, Ridgeon. Let me put it to you, Paddy. Clear your mind of cant, Walpole.

WALPOLE (indignantly] My mind is clear of cant.

B. B. Quite so. Well now, look at my practice. It is what I suppose pose you would call a fashionable practice, a smart practice, a practice among the best people. You ask me to go into the question of whether my patients are of any use either to themselves or anyone else. Well, if you apply any scientific test known to me, you will achieve a reductio ad absurdum. You will be driven to the conclusion that the majority of them would be, as my friend Mr J. M. Barrie has tersely phrased it, better dead. Better dead.[164] There are exceptions, no doubt. For instance, there is the court, an essentially social-democratic institution, supported out of public funds by the public because the public wants it and likes it. My court patients are hard-working people who give satisfaction, undoubtedly. Then I have a duke or two whose estates are probably better managed than they would be in public hands. But as to most of the rest, if I once began to argue about them, unquestionably the verdict would be, Better dead. When they actually do die, I sometimes have to offer that consolation, thinly disguised, to the family. [Lulled by the cadences of his own voice, he becomes drowsier and drowsier]. The fact that they spend money so extravagantly on medical attendance really would not justify me in wasting my talents — such as they are — in keeping them alive. After all, if my fees are high, I have to spend heavily. My own tastes are simple: a camp bed, a couple of rooms, a crust, a bottle of wine; and I am happy and contented. My wife’s tastes are perhaps more luxurious; but even she deplores an expenditure the sole object of which is to maintain the state my patients require from their medical attendant. The — er — er — er — [suddenly waking up] I have lost the thread of these remarks. What was I talking about, Ridgeon?