recovers--unless, of course, he's too far gone. That, I take it, is the
essence of Ridgeon's discovery.

SIR PATRICK [dreamily] As I sit here, I seem to hear my poor old father
talking again.

B. B. [rising in incredulous amazement] Your father! But, Lord bless my
soul, Paddy, your father must have been an older man than you.

SIR PATRICK. Word for word almost, he said what you say. No more drugs.
Nothing but inoculation.

B. B. [almost contemptuously] Inoculation! Do you mean smallpox
inoculation?

SIR PATRICK. Yes. In the privacy of our family circle, sir, my father
used to declare his belief that smallpox inoculation was good, not only
for smallpox, but for all fevers.

B. B. [suddenly rising to the new idea with immense interest and
excitement] What! Ridgeon: did you hear that? Sir Patrick: I am more
struck by what you have just told me than I can well express. Your
father, sir, anticipated a discovery of my own. Listen, Walpole.
Blenkinsop: attend one moment. You will all be intensely interested in
this. I was put on the track by accident. I had a typhoid case and
a tetanus case side by side in the hospital: a beadle and a city
missionary. Think of what that meant for them, poor fellows! Can a
beadle be dignified with typhoid? Can a missionary be eloquent with
lockjaw? No. NO. Well, I got some typhoid anti-toxin from Ridgeon and a
tube of Muldooley's anti-tetanus serum. But the missionary jerked all
my things off the table in one of his paroxysms; and in replacing them I
put Ridgeon's tube where Muldooley's ought to have been. The consequence
was that I inoculated the typhoid case for tetanus and the tetanus
case for typhoid. [The doctors look greatly concerned. B. B., undamped,
smiles triumphantly]. Well, they recovered. THEY RECOVERED. Except for
a touch of St Vitus's dance the missionary's as well to-day as ever; and
the beadle's ten times the man he was.

BLENKINSOP. Ive known things like that happen. They cant be explained.

B. B. [severely] Blenkinsop: there is nothing that cannot be explained
by science. What did I do? Did I fold my hands helplessly and say that
the case could not be explained? By no means. I sat down and used my
brains. I thought the case out on scientific principles. I asked myself
why didnt the missionary die of typhoid on top of tetanus, and the
beadle of tetanus on top of typhoid? Theres a problem for you, Ridgeon.
Think, Sir Patrick. Reflect, Blenkinsop. Look at it without p