"It was a sipple edough pridciple," he said later to Ellie as she spread mustard on his chest and poured more warm water into his foot bath. "The Cure itself depedded upod it—the adtiged-adtibody reactiod. We had the adtibody agaidst the virus, all ridght; what we had to find was sobe kide of adtibody agaidst the adtibody." He sneezed violently, and poured in nose drops with a happy grin.
"Will they be able to make it fast enough?"
"Just aboudt fast edough for people to get good ad eager to catch cold agaid," said Phillip. "There's odly wud little hitch...."
Ellie Dawson took the steaks from the grill and set them, still sizzling, on the dinner table. "Hitch?"
Phillip nodded as he chewed the steak with a pretence of enthusiasm. It tasted like slightly damp K-ration.
"This stuff we've bade does a real good job. Just a little too good." He wiped his nose and reached for a fresh tissue.
"I bay be wrog, but I thik I've got this cold for keeps," he said sadly. "Udless I cad fide ad adtibody agaidst the adtibody agaidst the adtibody—"
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from "Tiger by the Tail and Other Science Fiction Stories by Alan E. Nourse" and was first published in Galaxy April 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.