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 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. 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?

RIDGEON. About Dubedat.

B. B. Ah yes. Precisely. Thank you. Dubedat, of course. Well, what is
our friend Dubedat? A vicious and ignorant young man with a talent for
drawing.