and by this time she was ready to agree with him. He put on his hat,
and started to give that specialist a bit of his mind. The
specialist was out, and he had to bottle up his rage until the
morning. By then, his wife now really ill for the first time in her
life, his indignation had reached boiling point. He was at that
specialist's door at half-past nine o clock. At half-past eleven he
came back, also in a four-wheeled cab, and day and night nurses for
both of them were wired for. He also, it appeared, had arrived at
that specialist's door only just in time.

"There's this appendy--whatever they call it," commented Mrs.
Wilkins, "why a dozen years ago one poor creature out of ten thousand
may possibly 'ave 'ad something wrong with 'is innards. To-day you
ain't 'ardly considered respectable unless you've got it, or 'ave 'ad
it. I 'ave no patience with their talk. To listen to some of them
you'd think as Nature 'adn't made a man--not yet: would never
understand the principle of the thing till some of these young chaps
'ad shown 'er 'ow to do it."

[How to avoid Everything.]

"They have now discovered, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "the germ of old
age. They are going to inoculate us for it in early youth, with the
result that the only chance of ever getting rid of our friends will
be to give them a motor-car. And maybe it will not do to trust to
that for long. They will discover that some men's tendency towards
getting themselves into trouble is due to some sort of a germ. The
man of the future, Mrs. Wilkins, will be inoculated against all
chance of gas explosions, storms at sea, bad oysters, and thin ice.
Science may eventually discover the germ prompting to ill-assorted