SIR PATRICK. Do you hear voices?

RIDGEON. No.

SIR PATRICK. I'm glad of that. When my patients tell me that theyve made
a greater discovery than Harvey, and that they hear voices, I lock them
up.

RIDGEON. You think I'm mad! Thats just the suspicion that has come
across me once or twice. Tell me the truth: I can bear it.

SIR PATRICK. Youre sure there are no voices?

RIDGEON. Quite sure.

SIR PATRICK. Then it's only foolishness.

RIDGEON. Have you ever met anything like it before in your practice?

SIR PATRICK. Oh, yes: often. It's very common between the ages of
seventeen and twenty-two. It sometimes comes on again at forty or
thereabouts. Youre a bachelor, you see. It's not serious--if youre
careful.

RIDGEON. About my food?

SIR PATRICK. No: about your behavior. Theres nothing wrong with your
spine; and theres nothing wrong with your heart; but theres something
wrong with your common sense. Youre not going to die; but you may be
going to make a fool of yourself. So be careful.

RIDGEON. I sec you dont believe in my discovery. Well, sometimes I dont
believe in it myself. Thank you all the same. Shall we have Walpole up?

SIR PATRICK. Oh, have him up. [Ridgeon rings]. He's a clever operator,
is Walpole, though he's only one of your chloroform surgeons. In my
early days, you made your man drunk; and the porters and students
held him down; and you had to set your teeth and finish the job
fast. Nowadays you work at your ease; and the pain doesn't come until
afterwards, when youve taken your cheque and rolled up your bag and left
the house. I tell you, Colly, chloroform has done a lot of mischief.
It's enabled every fool to be a surgeon.

RIDGEON [to Emmy, who answers the bell] Shew Mr Walpole up.

EMMY. He's talking to the lady.

RIDGEON [exasperated] Did I not tell you--

Emmy goes out without heeding him. He gives it up, with a shrug, and
plants himself with his back to the console, leaning resignedly against
it.

SIR PATRICK. I know your Cutler Walpoles and their like. Theyve found
out that a man's body's full of bits and scraps of old organs he has no
mortal use for. Thanks to chloroform, you can cut half a dozen of them
out without leaving him any the worse, except for the illness and the
guineas it costs him. I knew the Walpoles well fifteen years ago. The
father used to snip off the ends of people's uvulas for fifty guineas,
and paint throats with caustic every day for a year at two guinea