“You don’t think,” began the mother anxiously, “that the children—”
“No; I don’t think they’ve got it. But the bacteriological analysis will show.”
“I hate to have it done,” said Mrs. Clyde, shuddering. “It seems so—so inviting of trouble.”
“Superstition,” said Dr. Strong, smiling. “Aren’t you just as anxious to find out that they haven’t got the infection as that they have? Come on, Bettykin; you’re first.” And, having prepared his material, he swabbed the throats of the whole company, after which he took the cultures with him to Dr. Merritt.
It was late when he returned, but he went direct to Mr. Clyde’s room.
“It’s worse than I thought, Clyde,” said he. “We’re in the first stage of a bad epidemic. The reports have been suppressed by Mullins, the Deputy Health Officer.”
“What did he do that for?”
“To cover his own inefficiency. He is City Bacteriologist, also, and the law requires him, in time of epidemic, to make bacteriological analyses. He doesn’t know how. So he simply pigeonholed the case reports as they came in.”
“How did such a rascal ever get the job?” asked Clyde.
“Political pull. The most destructive of all the causes of death which never get into the mortality records,” said Dr. Strong bitterly.