bout to follow him; but Sir Patrick stops him
with a look.

RIDGEON. What has happened?

SIR PATRICK. Do you remember Jane Marsh's arm?

RIDGEON. Is that whats happened?

SIR PATRICK. Thats whats happened. His lung has gone like Jane's arm.
I never saw such a case. He has got through three months galloping
consumption in three days.

RIDGEON. B. B. got in on the negative phase.

SIR PATRICK. Negative or positive, the lad's done for. He wont last out
the afternoon. He'll go suddenly: Ive often seen it.

RIDGEON. So long as he goes before his wife finds him out, I dont care.
I fully expected this.

SIR PATRICK [drily] It's a little hard on a lad to be killed because his
wife has too high an opinion of him. Fortunately few of us are in any
danger of that.

Sir Ralph comes from the inner room and hastens between them, humanely
concerned, but professionally elate and communicative.

B. B. Ah, here you are, Ridgeon. Paddy's told you, of course.

RIDGEON. Yes.

B. B. It's an enormously interesting case. You know, Colly, by Jupiter,
if I didnt know as a matter of scientific fact that I'd been stimulating
the phagocytes, I should say I'd been stimulating the other things.
What is the explanation of it, Sir Patrick? How do you account for it,
Ridgeon? Have we over-stimulated the phagocytes? Have they not only
eaten up the bacilli, but attacked and destroyed the red corpuscles as
well? a possibility suggested by the patient's pallor. Nay, have they
finally begun to prey on the lungs themselves? Or on one another? I
shall write a paper about this case.

Walpole comes back, very serious, even shocked. He comes between B. B.
and Ridgeon.

WALPOLE. Whew! B. B.: youve done it this time.

B. B. What do you mean?

WALPOLE. Killed him. The worst case of neglected blood-poisoning I ever
saw. It's too late now to do anything. He'd die under the anaesthetic.

B. B. [offended] Killed! Really, Walpole, if your monomania were not
well known, I should take such an expession very seriously.

SIR PATRICK. Come come! When youve both killed as many people as I have
in my time youll feel humble enough about it. Come and look at him,
Colly.

Ridgeon and Sir Patrick go into the inner room.

WALPOLE. I apologize, B. B. But it's blood-poisoning.

B. B. [recovering his irresistible good nature] My dear Walpole,
everything is blood-poisoning. But upon my soul, I shall not use any of
that stuff of Ridgeon's again. What made me so