"A what?"

"Culture. Poisonous growth; hence German 'Kultur,'" said the Major
etymologically. "To proceed. He then inoculated some guinea-pigs. No! I
don't mean directors in the City, though he might have done worse. And
lo! and behold! he found the fever. You know the four canons of the
bacteriologist? One, 'get'; two, 'cultivate'; three, 'inoculate'; four,
'recover.'"

"Well done, Simpson," I said.

"You may say that, my friend. And now there's old Simpson down at the
Base in charge of No. 12 General saving lives by hundreds and thousands.
You know while the bullet slew its thousands, septicaemia has slain its
tens of thousands. How did he stop it? Why, by doing the obvious, which,
you may have observed, no one ever does till a wise man comes along. He
got wounds to heal themselves. He promoted a lymphatic flow from the
rest of the body by putting suppositories of chloride of sodium inside
drainage-tubes in the wound. The heat of the body melts them, you see.
There are three great medical heroes of this war--Almroth Wright,
Martin-Leake, and Simpson."

I could have named a fourth, but I held my tongue.

"Time to get on our hind legs," the Major now said monitorily. "Julie,
_l'addition_ s'il vous plaît."

"Bien, monsieur," said Julie, who had been watching the Major admiringly
without comprehending a word of what he said. Women have a way of