Dr. Strong brought his hand down flat on the table with a force which made his cup jump in its saucer. “And your misnamed Public Health League proposes to take some action against the man who is shown, by every evidence you’ve suggested thus far, to be the right man in the right place!” “How does the diphtheria rate show in his favor any more than the other death rates against him?” “Because diphtheria is the one important disease which your medical officer can definitely control, and he seems to be doing it.” “The only important one? Surely smallpox is controllable?” “Smallpox is the poisoned arrow of the fool-killer. It is controllable; but it isn’t important, except to fools and anti-vaccination bigots.” Mr. Thomas Clyde softly rubbed his cleanshaven chin, a sign and token with him that his mind was hard at work. “You’re giving me a new view of a city in which I’ve lived for the first and last forty-five years of my life,” he said presently. “Are you familiar with conditions here?” “Never have been here before, and have no reason to suppose that I shall ever return. Traveling at night is too much for me, so I stopped over to have a look at a town which has been rather notorious among public health officials for years.” “Notorious!” repeated Mr. Clyde, his local pride up in arms. “For falsifying its vital statistics. Your low mortality figures are a joke. Worthington has been more jeered at, criticized, and roasted by various medical conventions than any other city in the United States.” “Why, I’ve never seen anything of that sort in the papers.” Dr. Strong laughed. “Your newspapers print what you want to read; not what you don’t want to read. They follow the old adage, ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you.’ It’s a poor principle in matters of hygiene.” “So one might suppose,” returned the host dryly. “Still you can scarcely expect a newspaper to run down its own city. I’ve known business to suffer for a year from sensational reports of an epidemic.” The other grunted. “If a pest of poisonous spiders suddenly bred and spread in Worthington, the newspapers would be full of it, and everybody would commend the printing of the facts as a necessary warning and safeguard. But when a pest of poisonous germs breeds and spreads, Business sets its finger to its lips and says, ‘Hush!’ and the newspapers obey. You’re a business man, I assume, Mr. Clyde? Frankly, I haven’t very much sympathy with the business point of view.” He rose and pushed his chair back. “Wait a moment,” said the other. “Sit down. I have something that may be of importance to suggest to you. It occurs to me that Worthington would be the better for having a man with your ideas as a citizen. Now, supposing the Public Health League should offer you—” “I am not at present in medical practice,” broke in the other. “Even at that, I was thinking that you would be of use as an advisory physician and scientific lookout.”