"There's something very wrong down in the Twelfth Ward."
"Not going in for reform politics, are you?"
"This isn't political. Some kind of disease has broken out in O'Farrell's Rookeries."
"Delirium tremens," suggested Dr. Elliot.
"Yes: that's a funny joke," returned the other, unmoved; "but did you ever hear of any one sneaking D-T cases across the county line at night to a pest-house run by a political friend of O'Farrell's?"
"Can't say I have."
"Or burying the dead in quicklime?"
"Quicklime? What's this, 'Clarion' sensationalism?"
"Don't be young. I'm telling you. Quicklime. Canadaga County."
Not only had Dr. Elliot served his country in the navy, but he had done duty in that efficient fighting force, which reaps less honor and follows a more noble, self-sacrificing and courageous ideal than any army or navy, the United States Public Health Service. Under that banner he had fought famines, panic, and pestilence, from the stricken lumber-camps of the North, to the pent-in, quarantined bayous of the South; and now, at the hint of danger, there came a battle-glint into his sharp eyes.