“Dumble’s wrong!” he exclaimed. “He says it’s the hybadid cystallis, and I’m certain he’s mistaken. The inhabitants of this water are schizomycetic bacteria, but they are neither macrocci of roseopersicina, nor have they iso-diametric cells.
“Can it be that I have discovered a new germ? Is scientific fame within my grasp?”
He seized his pen and began to write. In a little while his family came home and his wife came up to the laboratory. He generally refused to let her in, but on that occasion he opened the door and welcomed her enthusiastically.
“Ellen,” he cried, “since you have been gone I have won fame and perhaps fortune. I have discovered a new bacterium in the bayou water. Science describes nothing like it. I shall call it after you and your name will pass into eternal fame. Just take a look through the microscope.”
His wife shut one eye and looked into the cylinder.
“Funny little round things, ain’t they?” she said. “Are they injurious to the system?”
“Sure death. Get one of ’em in your alimentary canal and you’re a goner. I’m going to write to the London Lancet and the New York Academy of Sciences tonight. What shall we call ’em, Ellen? Let’s see—Ellenobes, or Ellenites, or what?”
“Oh, John, you wretch!” shrieked his wife, as she caught sight of the tin bucket on the table. “You’ve got my bucket of Galveston oysters that I bought to take to the church supper! Microbes, indeed!”
(Houston Daily Post, Sunday morning, November 15, 1895.)