“You must,” he was saying, “remember that you are soldiers before everything. In putting on the uniform, you have put on responsibilities. The independence of science has to yield before the necessity of a uniform method. Personal experience has to give way to discipline.”
With this simple injunction, personal experience yielded to the sway of discipline. In one voice the least disciplined race in the world replied:
“Of course, that is quite understood, Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général.”
The spectacled young man was standing near me, his arms rigidly at attention and eyes front. I heard him whisper a strange thing to his neighbour:
“Times have changed: every dog has his day.”
But his neighbour made a slight gesture of impatience, and the young man took up again his stiff attitude of respect.
His remark was quite out of place, I thought. Yet it got me out of my trance, and I began to reflect painfully on the incredible phenomenon which was then occurring before my eyes.
And it was now entering upon a critical phase. The inspector was examining the room where wounds were dressed.
“This room,” he said, “is large and well arranged. It was altered according to instructions I made in 1895 when I was reorganising this hospital. In fact, the whole place seems fairly satisfactory. Have you any complaints to make, Coupé?”
Doctor Coupé blushed, was rather upset, and ended by saying: