y to discredit science. They dupe and mislead many honest and worthy
people. But science has a perfect answer to them on every point.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep; or taste not the Pierian spring.

I mean no disrespect to your generation, Sir Patrick: some of you old
stagers did marvels through sheer professional intuition and clinical
experience; but when I think of the average men of your day, ignorantly
bleeding and cupping and purging, and scattering germs over their
patients from their clothes and instruments, and contrast all that with
the scientific certainty and simplicity of my treatment of the little
prince the other day, I cant help being proud of my own generation:
the men who were trained on the germ theory, the veterans of the great
struggle over Evolution in the seventies. We may have our faults; but at
least we are men of science. That is why I am taking up your treatment,
Ridgeon, and pushing it. It's scientific. [He sits down on the chair
near the couch].

EMMY [at the door, announcing] Dr Blenkinsop.

Dr Blenkinsop is a very different case from the others. He is clearly
not a prosperous man. He is flabby and shabby, cheaply fed and cheaply
clothed. He has the lines made by a conscience between his eyes, and
the lines made by continual money worries all over his face, cut all the
deeper as he has seen better days, and hails his well-to-do colleagues
as their contemporary and old hospital friend, though even in this he
has to struggle with the diffidence of poverty and relegation to the
poorer middle class.

RIDGEON. How are you, Blenkinsop?

BLENKINSOP. Ive come to offer my humble congratulations. Oh dear! all
the great guns are before me.

B. B. [patronizing, but charming] How d'ye do Blenkinsop? How d'ye do?

BLENKINSOP. And Sir Patrick, too [Sir Patrick grunts].

RIDGEON. Youve met Walpole, of course?

WALPOLE. How d'ye do?

BLENKINSOP. It's the first time Ive had that honor. In my poor little
practice there are no chances of meeting you great men. I know nobody
but the St Anne's men of my own day. [To Ridgeon] And so youre Sir
Colenso. How does it feel?

RIDGEON. Foolish at first. Dont take any notice of it.

BLENKINSOP. I'm ashamed to say I havnt a notion what your great
discovery is; but I congratulate you all the same for the sake of old
times.

B. B. [shocked] But, my dear Blenkinsop, you used to be rather keen on
science.

BLENKINSOP