s
Repplier; and from epigrams based on puns, good or bad; and from stories
beginning, "It was the autumn of the year 1950"; and from stories
embodying quotations from Omar Khayyam, and full of a mellow pessimism;
and from stories in which the gay nocturnal life of the Latin Quarter is
described by an author living in Dubuque, Iowa; and from stories of
thought transference, mental healing and haunted houses; and from
newspaper stories in which a cub reporter solves the mystery of the
Snodgrass murder and is promoted to dramatic critic on the field, or in
which a city editor who smokes a corn-cob pipe falls in love with a
sob-sister; and from stories about trained nurses, young dramatists,
baseball players, heroic locomotive engineers, settlement workers,
clergymen, yeggmen, cowboys, Italians, employes of the Hudson Bay
Company and great detectives; and from stories in which the dissolute
son of a department store owner tries to seduce a working girl in his
father's employ and then goes on the water wagon and marries her as a
tribute to her virtue; and from stories in which the members of a
yachting party are wrecked on a desert island in the South Pacific, and
the niece of the owner of the yacht falls in love with the bo'sun; and
from manuscripts accompanied by documents certifying that the incidents
and people described are real, though cleverly disguised; and from
authors who send in saucy notes when their offerings are returned with
insincere thanks; and from lady authors who appear with satirical
letters of introduction from the low, raffish rogues who edit rival
magazines--good Lord, deliver us!

_IX.--ASEPSIS_

_IX.--Asepsis. A Deduction in Scherzo Form_

CHARACTERS:

A CLERGYMAN
A BRIDE
FOUR BRIDESMAIDS
A BRIDEGROOM
A BEST MAN
THE USUAL CROWD

PLACE--_The surgical amphitheatre in a hospital._

TIME--_Noon of a fair day._

_Seats rising in curved tiers. The operating pit paved with white tiles.
The usual operating table has been pushed to one side, and in place of
it there is a small glass-topped bedside table. On it, a large roll of
aseptic cotton, several pads of gauze, a basin of bichloride, a pair of
clinical thermometers in a little glass of alcohol, a dish of green
soap, a beaker of two per cent. carbolic acid, and a microscope. In one
corner stands a sterilizer, steaming pleasantly like a tea kettle. There
are no decorations--no flowers, no white ribbons, no satin cushions.