We stood together on the pavement and gazed at these statements in silence. A sense of wonder filled my mind. What a confusion! What an emotional, feverish, heated confusion! Why could not they take the matter calmly? What, in the name of goodness, was the reason of this panic. They knew that the Blue Disease had caused no fatalities in Birmingham, and yet so totally absent was the power of thought and deduction, that they actually printed those glaring headlines. "The fools," I said. "The amazing, fatuous fools. They simply want to sell the paper. They have no other idea." A strong nausea came over me. I crumpled up the paper and stood staring up and down the street. The newspaper boy was in the far distance, still shrieking. I saw Sir Barnaby Burtle, the obstetrician, standing by his scarlet front door, eagerly devouring the news. His jaw was slack and his eyes protruded. The solemn houses of Harley Street only increased my nausea. The folly of it--the selfish, savage folly of life! "Come, Richard," said Alice. "The sooner we get to the house agent the better. We could never live here." "I'll put him on to the job of finding a bungalow on the South Coast at once," I said. "And then we'll go and live there." "We must get married," she observed. "Married!" I stopped and stared at her with a puzzled expression. "Don't you think the marriage ceremony is rather barbarous?" She did not reply; we walked on immersed in our own thoughts. At times I detected in the passers-by a gleam of sparrow-egg blue. My house agent was a large, confused individual who habitually wore a shining top hat on the back of his head and twisted a cigar in the corner of his mouth. He was very fat, with one of those creased faces that seem to fall into folds like a heavy crimson curtain. His brooding, congested eye fell upon me as we entered, and an expression of alarm became visible in its depths. He pushed his chair back and retreated to a corner of the room. "Dr. Harden!" he exclaimed fearfully, "you oughtn't to come here like that, you really oughtn't." "Don't be an ass, Franklyn," I said firmly. "You are bound to catch the germ sooner or later. It will impress you immensely." "It's all over London," he whimpered. "It's too much; it will hit us hard. It's too much." "Listen to me," I said. "I have come here to see you about business. Now sit down in your chair; I won't touch you. I want you to get me a bungalow by the sea with a garden as soon as possible. I am going to sell my house." "Sell your house!" He became calmer. "That is very extraordinary, Dr. Harden." "I am going out of London." He was astonished. "But your house--in Harley Street--so central...." he stammered. "I don't understand. Are you giving up your practice?" "Of course." "At your age, Dr. Harden?" "What has age got to do with it? There is no such thing as age." He stared. Then his eyes turned to Alice.