“You’re absolutely right, Mac!” Dr. Harrison’s voice was placid, and Prissy and Princeton automatically exhaled the breath they had been inhaling preparatory to argument.
Dr. Harrison said:
“Do you know how many rabbit feet I’ve seen on dispensary patients in the last six months? Sixty-three! The cancer cases love ’em. How many patients we’ve lost because they moved when another negro sprinkled salt upon their doorsteps? Eighty-one! Within three blocks of here I’ve counted fifteen chiropractors, ten optometrists, five osteopaths, and seventeen midwives.
“Superstition, witchcraft, voodoo, dynamite! We’ve got to keep our face no matter if all of us are murdered. Matter with you three is just a touch of hysteria.”
Hoffbein squirmed and replied:
“Fear psychosis is a most contagious disease, but like all contagious diseases most debilitating. It has only one cure: to remove the cause of the fear.”
His voice was precise and his words, he felt, showed how he stood and yet were dignified.
“From which I understand you are suggesting we scrap Cub Sterling,” MacArthur’s angry eyes bore into him like a hot poker, and his mouth drew to a tight line as he slapped his hand upon his desk and stated, “I won’t do it without ample, complete and convincing evidence. Have you any to offer?”
Hoffbein squirmed acutely and he replied evasively:
“Nothing ... tangible.... Only those small and very personal signs which to a man in my branch are so revealing. His hands, the hysterical set of his left shoulder, the peculiar light which comes into his eyes....”