"Well, social fad or not," said the Idiot, "whatever it was, there is no question about it that serious inroads have been made upon what we may call our vermiforests, and unless something is done to protect them, by George, in a few years we won't have any left except a few stuffed specimens down in the Smithsonian Institution. "I asked my friend Doctor Cuttem why he didn't call for a Vermiform Conservation Congress to see what can be done either to prevent this ruthless sacrifice of a product that if suitably safeguarded should supply ourselves, and our children, and our children's children to the uttermost posterity, with ample appendicular resources for the maintenance in good style of a reasonable number of surgeons; or to re-seed scientifically where the unscientific destruction of these resources is uncontrollable. How about that, Doctor? Suppose you remove a man's vermiform appendix--is there any system of medical, or surgical, fertilization and replanting that would cause two vermiforms to grow where only one grew before, so that sooner or later every human interior may become a sort of garden-close, where one can go and pluck a handful of vermiform appendices every morning, like so many hardy perennials in full bloom?" "I'm afraid not," smiled the Doctor. "Anybody but the Idiot would know that it couldn't be done," said the Bibliomaniac, "because if it could be done it would have been done long ago. When you find men successfully transplanting rabbits' tails on monkeys, and frogs' legs on canary birds, you can make up your mind that if it were within the range of human possibility they would by this time have vermiform appendices sprouting lushly in geranium pots for insertion into the systems of persons desiring luxuries of that sort." "You mustn't sneer at the achievements of modern surgery, Mr. Bib," said the Idiot. "There is no telling how soon any one of us may need to avail himself of its benefits. Who knows--maybe a surgeon will come along some day who will be able to implant a sense of humor in you, to gladden all your days." "Preposterous!" snapped the Bibliomaniac. "Well, it does seem unlikely," said the Idiot, "but I know of a young doctor who without any previous experience planted a little heart in a frigid Suffragette; and though I know the soil is not propitious, even you may sometime be blossoming luxuriantly within with buds of cheer and sweet optimism. But however this may be, it is the unquestioned and sad fact that a once profitable industry for our surgically-inclined brothers has slumped; and they tell me that even those surgeons who have adopted modern commercial methods, and give away a set of Rudyard Kipling's Works and a year's subscription to the _Commoner_ with every vermiform removed, are making less than a thousand dollars a week out of that branch of their work." "Mercy!" cried the Poet. "What couldn't I do if I had a thousand dollars a week!"