“It has been my habit,” he said, “for thirty years to put in some cotton wool--I lectured to the Academy of Medicine--what! And nothing gives me such good results, because----” At that point the Medical Inspector-General struck the sick man’s little table drily with his pencil. “Hurry up, Proby,” he said, in a calm, cutting voice. Proby started a little, and mumbled again: “For thirty years I have always used cotton wool----” “Believe me, Proby, that’s enough. You will not put any of it in the wounds. You understand.” M. Dufrêne turned his back and began examining the next wounded man. I watched Professor Proby’s face. I was sure the honoured academician was going to burst in again. The much-expected scientific controversy was at last about to take place before my eyes, and ideas would cross to and fro like glittering swords. I waited, holding my breath. In grave silence, the academician replied: “Very good, _Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_!” I looked at everybody in turn. It seemed to me that a glove had been thrown down, and that some one was going to pick it up with polite audacity. But everybody looked vague and attentive. Professor Proby went up to the Medical Inspector-General, and repeated mechanically: “Very good, _Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_!” The experience of thirty years’ practice vanished like a light that went out. M. Dufrêne went from bed to bed, heavy and majestic. “You made a mistake in operating upon this man: you would have done better to wait,” he said. Sometimes he approved: “Here is a result which justifies our theories.” Most often his criticism was unrestrained: “Why didn’t you use my apparatus--the Dufrêne apparatus? I wish to see it used here.” Then murmurs of assent and promises were heard. To everything Proby replied invariably, “_Oui, Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_.” Doctor Coupé got red and confused in trying to express appreciations of the Inspector’s methods that seemed like excuses for his own. I was watching M. Briavoine: he was nodding his head unceasingly, and murmured in a dignified way: “Obviously, _Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_.... Of course, _Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général_.” These words were always being repeated by everybody. They were repeated as a refrain to almost every syllable and pronounced with a mumbling mechanical promptitude, so that every sentence, and every reply, seemed to end with this ritualistic rhythm: “_Mossinspecteurjral_.” M. Dufrêne, more and more, gave expression to a kind of triumphant lyric. He spoke of himself, of his works, with a growing volubility and frequency. I thought he was disposed to qualify as “quite French,” or “national,” and sometimes as “a work of genius,” methods and ideas which were strictly his own. But this attempt to objectify things had a very slight connection with modesty.