"Not I! I'm not one of your samurai, your voluntary noblemen who
have taken the world in hand. I might be, of course, but I'm
not."

"Samurai!" I repeated, "voluntary noblemen!" and for the moment
could not frame a question.

He whirled on to an attack on science, that stirred the botanist to
controversy. He denounced with great bitterness all specialists
whatever, and particularly doctors and engineers.

"Voluntary noblemen!" he said, "voluntary Gods I fancy they think
themselves," and I was left behind for a space in the perplexed
examination of this parenthesis, while he and the botanist--who is
sedulous to keep his digestion up to date with all the newest
devices--argued about the good of medicine men.

"The natural human constitution," said the blond-haired man, "is
perfectly simple, with one simple condition--you must leave it to
Nature. But if you mix up things so distinctly and essentially
separated as the animal and vegetable kingdoms for example, and ram
_that_ in for it to digest, what can you expect?

"Ill health! There isn't such a thing--in the course of Nature. But
you shelter from Nature in houses, you protect yourselves by clothes
that are useful instead of being ornamental, you wash--with such
abstersive chemicals as soap for example--and above all you consult
doctors." He approved himself with a chuckle. "Have you ever found
anyone seriously ill without doctors and medicine about? Never! You
say a lot of people would die without shelter and medical