The House Surgeon looked from the beaming profile to the
tense, drawn outline of mouth and chin belonging to the nurse in charge
of Ward C.]

The House Surgeon was still young and unspoiled enough to blush
whenever he was consulted. Moreover, he hated to speak in public,
knowing, as he did, that he lacked the cultured manner and the polished
speech of the Senior Surgeon. He always crawled out of it whenever he
could, putting some one else more ready of tongue in his place. He was
preparing to crawl this time when another look at the white profile in
front of him brought him to his feet.

"See here," he burst out, bluntly, "we all know the chief is as clever
as any surgeon in the country, and that he can do anything in the world
he sets out to do, even to turning Saint Margaret's into a surgical
laboratory. But you ought to stop him--you've got to stop him--that is
your business as trustees of this institution. We don't need any more
surgical laboratories just yet--they are getting along fast enough at
Rockefeller, Johns Hopkins, and the Mayo clinic. What we scientific
chaps need to remember--and it ought to be hammered at us three times a
day, and then some--is that humanity was never put into the world for
the sole purpose of benefiting science. We are apt to forget this and
get to thinking that a few human beings more or less don't count in the
face of establishing one scientific fact."

He paused just long enough to snatch a breath, and then went racing
madly on. "Institutions are apt to forget that they are taking care of
the souls and minds of human beings as well as their bodies. It seems
to me that the man who founded this hospital intended it for humane
rather than scientific purposes. His wishes ought to be considered
now; and I wager he would say, if he were here, to let science go hang
and keep the incurables."

The House Surgeon sat down, breathing heavily and mopping his forehead.
It was the longest speech he had ever made, and he was painfully
conscious of its inadequacy. The Senior Surgeon excused himself and
left the room, not, however, until he had given the House Surgeon a
look pregnant with meaning; Saint Margaret's would hardly be large
enough to hold them both after the 30th of April.

The trustees moved restlessly in their chairs. The unexpected had
happened; there was an internal rupture at Saint Margaret's; and for
forty years the trustees had boasted of its harmonious behavior a