On Christmas morning of 1900, there was a fine present waiting for him--in his head, how that thumped--in his eyes, how red they were and how the light hurt them--in his bones, how tired they were! A nasty knock those mosquitoes had hit him and he came within a hair of dying but (thank God! murmured Walter Reed) he was saved, this Moran, to live the rest of his life in an obscurity he didn’t deserve. So Moran had his wish--in the interest of science, and for humanity! So he, with Folk and Jernegan and Cooke and all those others proved that the dirty pest-hole of a house (with no mosquitoes) was safe; and that the clean house (but with mosquitoes) was dangerous, so dangerous! So at last Walter Reed had every answer to his diabolical questions, and he wrote, in that old-fashioned prose of his: “The essential factor in the infection of a building with yellow fever is the presence therein of mosquitoes that have bitten cases of yellow fever.” It was so simple. It was true. That was all. That was that. And Walter Reed wrote to his wife: “The prayer that has been mine for twenty years, that I might be permitted in some way or at some time to do something to alleviate human suffering has been granted! A thousand Happy New Years.... Hark, there go the twenty-four buglers in concert, all sounding taps for the old year!” They were sounding taps, were those buglers, for the searcher that was Jesse Lazear, and for the scourge of yellow fever that could now be wiped from the earth. They were blowing their bugles, those musicians, to celebrate--as you will see--the fate that waited for that little commission after a too short hour of triumph.... VI