“Glad to see you, my boy,” Dr. Surtaine greeted him.  “I thought you were going to send a reporter.”

“Ordinarily we would have sent one.  But I’m pretty well interested in this myself.  I expected to hear from you long ago.”

“Busy, my boy, busy.  It’s only been a week since I undertook the investigation.  And these things take time.”

“Apparently.  What’s the result?”

“Nothing.”  The quack spread his hands abroad in a blank gesture.  “False alarm.  Couple of cases of typhoid and some severe tonsillitis, that looked like diphtheria.”

“People die of tonsillitis, do they?”

“Sometimes.”

“And are buried?”

“Naturally.”

“What in?”

“Why, in coffins, I suppose.”

“Then why were these bodies buried in quicklime?”

“What bodies?”

“Last week’s lot.”

“You mean in Canadaga County?  O’Farrell said nothing about quicklime.”

“That’s what I mean.  Apparently O’Farrell did say something about more corpses smuggled out last week.”

“Mr. Ellis,” said the Doctor, annoyed at his slip, “I am not on the witness stand.”

“Dr. Surtaine,” returned the other in the same tone, “when you undertake an investigation for the ‘Clarion,’ you are one of my reporters and I expect a full and frank report from you.”

“Bull’s-eye for you, my boy.  You win.  They did run those cases out.  Before we’re through with it they’ll probably run more out.  You see, the Health Bureau has got it in for O’Farrell, and if they knew there was anything up there, they’d raise a regular row and queer things generally.”

“What is up?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Nor even suspect?”

“Well, it might be scarlet fever.  Or, perhaps diphtheria.  You see strange types sometimes.”

“If it’s either, failure to report is against the law.”

“Technically, yes.  But we’ve got it fixed to clean things up.  The people will be looked after.  There’s no real danger of its spreading much.  And you know how it is.  The Rookeries have got a bad name, anyway.  Anything starting there is sure to be exaggerated.  Why, look at that chicken-pox epidemic a few years ago.”

“I understand nobody who had been vaccinated got any of the chicken-pox, as you call it.”

“That’s as may be.  What did it amount to, anyway?  Nothing.  Yet it almost ruined Old Home Week.”

“Naturally you don’t want the Centennial Home Week endangered.  But we don’t want the health of the city endangered.”

“‘We.’  Who’s we?”

“Well, the ‘Clarion.’”

“Don’t work the guardian-of-the-people game on me, my boy.  And don’t worry about the city’s health.  If this starts to spread we’ll take measures.”

By no means satisfied with this interview, McGuire Ellis left the Certina plant, and almost ran into Dr. Elliot, whom he hailed, for he had the faculty of knowing everybody.