her, too.  And by George, sir, she hadnt any sac at all.  Not a trace!  Not a rudiment!!  I was so taken aback—­so interested, that I forgot to take the sponges out, and was stitching them up inside her when the nurse missed them.  Somehow, I’d made sure she’d have an exceptionally large one. [He sits down on the couch, squaring his shoulders and shooting his hands out of his cuffs as he sets his knuckles akimbo].

Emmy [looking in] Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington.

A long and expectant pause follows this announcement.  All look to the door; but there is no Sir Ralph.

Ridgeon [at last] Were is he?

Emmy [looking back] Drat him, I thought he was following me.  He’s stayed down to talk to that lady.

Ridgeon [exploding] I told you to tell that lady—­ [Emmy vanishes].

Walpole [jumping up again] Oh, by the way, Ridgeon, that reminds me.  Ive been talking to that poor girl.  It’s her husband; and she thinks it’s a case of consumption:  the usual wrong diagnosis:  these damned general practitioners ought never to be allowed to touch a patient except under the orders of a consultant.  She’s been describing his symptoms to me; and the case is as plain as a pikestaff:  bad blood-poisoning.  Now she’s poor.  She cant afford to have him operated on.  Well, you send him to me:  I’ll do it for nothing.  Theres room for him in my nursing home.  I’ll put him straight, and feed him up and make him happy.  I like making people happy. [He goes to the chair near the window].

Emmy [looking in] Here he is.

Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington wafts himself into the room.  He is a tall man, with a head like a tall and slender egg.  He has been in his time a slender man; but now, in his sixth decade, his waistcoat has filled out somewhat.  His fair eyebrows arch good-naturedly and uncritically.  He has a most musical voice; his speech is a perpetual anthem; and he never tires of the sound of it.  He radiates an enormous self-satisfaction, cheering, reassuring, healing by the mere incompatibility of disease or anxiety with his welcome presence.  Even broken bones, it is said, have been known to unite at the sound of his voice:  he is a born healer, as independent of mere treatment and skill as any Christian scientist.  When he expands into oratory or scientific exposition, he is as energetic as Walpole; but it is with a bland, voluminous, atmospheric energy, which envelops its subject and its audience, and makes interruption or inattention impossible, and imposes veneration and credulity on all but the strongest minds.  He is known in the medical world as B. B.; and the envy roused by his success in practice is softened by the conviction that he is, scientifically considered, a colossal humbug:  the fact being that, though he knows just as much (and just as little) as his contemporaries, the qualifications that pass muster in common men reveal their weakness when hung on his egregious personality.