“First, then: you need not worry about Manny. I talked to him, long ago.”
“But he’s only a boy, still,” said Mrs. Sharpless involuntarily.
“He enters college this fall. And I’ve made sure that he won’t take with him the ‘no worse than a cold’ superstition about a disease which has wrecked the lives of thousands of Bartley Starrs.”
“But I thought that Starr’s was the—the other and worse form,” said Mr. Clyde.
“Plain talk,” adjured the Health Master. “You thought it was syphilis?”
“Yes.”
“And you thought syphilis worse than gonorrhoea?”
“Surely!”
“Well, it isn’t. I’ll explain that in detail presently. Just now—”
“Do I have to hear all of this,” appealed Mrs. Clyde, with a face of piteous disgust.