Good afternoon to you.

LOUIS [running to him piteously] Oh dont get up, Sir Patrick. Don't 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 don't 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 its 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].

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 That leaves only one medical man who has not withdrawn from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