The physician straightened up and regarded the pupil gravely. "Anything else?" "My stomach feels queer and it hurts like the dickens every once in a while. I lost my breakfast, this morning, too!" A tense note crept into the inquisitor's voice. "Have you ever been vaccinated?" "No sir. We just moved to the city this summer." "Smallpox!" The principal turned a little pale. "Are you sure?" he asked. "The pain in the back and the vomiting are almost certain indications." He turned to the boy. "Tell your mother to notify the health department the very minute you get home. Your house must be quarantined immediately." Much more was said regarding precautions, and measures, and medicines, to which the patient listened stolidly. A disinterested observer might have said that he was waiting solely for the order to leave school. As the door closed, the authorities exchanged worried glances. "The health record of the school has always been remarkably good," began the principal. "But it's an epidemic," cut in the worried physician. "And what an epidemic. Four cases this morning, and two yesterday, ranging all the way from mumps to smallpox. Downer, the school ought to be closed and thoroughly disinfected." "Doesn't it strike you as peculiar that the cases are confined to one room, Ten, and that boys are the only victims?" "Did you ever hear of a germ carrier. A person who, through some source of exposure, carries germs here and there on his or her clothes, and is perfectly immune to them. That's what you must have in that room. As for your last question, merely a coincidence. The boys happened to be the most susceptible to exposure, that's all." A bell clanged noisily. Mr. Downer stood up and looked thoughtfully from his window upon the orderly lines of pupils that no sooner passed from the school threshold than they became a howling, shouting mass of seeming infant maniacs. "Seems to me," he said, "Miss Brown was telling about a girl named Margaret, Margaret Moran, whose mother took in washing for a living. Spoke of it as a great joke. Said the girl wore a new dress every day, sometimes too long, sometimes too short, but never a fit. An ingenious way to reduce one item of the present high cost of living. She might be the one," he admitted. "Always the way," his companion said sharply. "There are more epidemics and near epidemics started by these itinerant washerwomen than the medical journals can keep track of. They ought to be regulated." "At any rate," said the principal, "I think it would be wise to question her a little before steps are taken to close the school. She may be able to shed some light on matters." "As you wish." The physician shrugged his shoulders. "I'll be back, this afternoon, to help with the inquisition."