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. To the left a door leads into the Anesthetic Room. A pungent smell of ether, nitrous oxide, iodine, chlorine, wet laundry and scorched gauze. Temperature: 98.6 degrees Fahr._ THE CLERGYMAN _is discovered standing behind the table in an expectant attitude. He is in the long white coat of a surgeon, with his head wrapped in white gauze and a gauze respirator over his mouth. His chunkiness suggests a fat, middle-aged Episcopal rector, but it is impossible to see either his face or his vestments. He wears rubber gloves of a dirty orange color, evidently much used._ THE BRIDEGROOM _and_ THE BEST MAN _have just emerged from the Anesthetic Room and are standing before him. Both are dressed exactly as he is, save that_ THE BRIDEGROOM'S _rubber gloves are white. The benches running up the amphitheatre are filled with spectators, chiefly women. They are in dingy oilskins, and most of them also wear respirators._