“Yes, I know,” said Osmond, with controlled impatience. “But what sort of influenza is it? I’m hoping to learn something now you’ve come. Stirling will talk about anything except influenza.”
“What sort of influenza is it? What do you mean?” And Charlie’s twinkling glance said condescendingly: “What’s the old cock got hold of now? This is just like him.”
“But is there any real danger?” Edwin murmured.
“Well,” said Osmond, bringing up his regiments, “as I understand it, there are three types of influenza—the respiratory, the gastro-intestinal, and the nervous. Which one is it?”
Charlie laughed, and prodded his father with a forefinger in a soft region near the shoulder, disturbing his balance. “You’ve been reading the ‘BMJ,’” he said, “and so you needn’t pretend you haven’t!”
Osmond paused an instant to consider the meaning of these initials.
“What if I have?” he demanded, raising his eyebrows, “I say there are three types—”
“Thirty; you might be nearer the mark with thirty,” Charlie interrupted him. “The fact is that this division into types is all very well in theory,” he proceeded, with easy disdain. “But in practice it won’t work out. Now for instance, what this kid has won’t square with any of your three types. It’s purely febrile, that’s what it is. Rare, decidedly rare, but less rare in children than in adults—at any rate in my experience—in my experience. If his temperature wasn’t so high, I should say the thing might last for days—weeks even. I’ve known it. The first question I put was—has he been in a stupor? He had. It may recur. That, and headache, and the absence of localised nervous symptoms—” He stopped, leaving the sentence in the air, grandiose and formidable, but of no purport.
Charlie shrugged his shoulders, allowing the beholder to choose his own interpretation of the gesture.
“You’re a devilish wonderful fellow,” said Osmond grimly to his son. And Charlie winked grimly at Edwin, who grimly smiled.