"Now, you say the kind, gentle, and all that, phase is the normal one. Is that usually dominant?"
"Yes. Nick can master the other, or could until recently. He says this last—attack—is the worst he's ever had; the other has been gaining strength."
"Strange!" mused the Doctor. "Well," he said with a smile of encouragement, "I'll have a look at him."
"Do you think you can help?" Pat asked anxiously. "Have you any idea what it is?"
"It isn't a devil, at any rate," he smiled.
"But have you any idea?"
"Naturally I have, but I can't diagnose at second hand. I'll have to talk to him."
"But what do you think it is?" she persisted.
"I think it's a fixation of an idea gained in childhood, Honey. I had a patient once—" He smiled at the reminiscence—"who had a fixed delusion of that sort. He was perfectly rational on every point save one—he believed that a pig with a pink ribbon was following him everywhere! Down town, into elevators and offices, home to bed—everywhere he went this pink-ribboned prize porker pursued him!"
"And did you cure him?"