"Your what?" the guard inquired, not quite catching the words. "What kind of fever did you say?"
"Hay-fever," Judith answered. "It's a pestilence that used to rage in the twentieth century."
"Never heard of it," said the guard; at which the girl, drawing a mirror and powder-puff from her bag, began to smear her face anew; while Downey once more sneezed violently.
"Sounds mighty dangerous!" concluded the guard; and opening a little black tube on the wall, he called into it, "Send Doctor ZX down here at once! The prisoner has a fit!"
Downey was just completing his third sneezing spell a minute or two later when the black-robed Doctor arrived. With a dismayed gasp, he stared at Downey; then opened a little case and took out a mass of batteries and wires, which he attached to the prisoner's wrists and ankles, while he damped two tubes to his ears and listened.
While he was doing this, Judith was using her powder-puff again, and Downey once more sneezed.
"I don't know just what the disturbance is," the Doctor at length decided, gloomily. "There's some hidden functional derangement. The heartbeat is too fast. And the nerve pressure is too low. It's too bad, young man, that you should have to spoil a good record."
Downey's answer was to sneeze once more.
"I can't imagine what causes the fits," meditated the Doctor, while conducting a further examination. "It's something new to medical science. For all I know, it may be contagious. Worst of all the germs are probably in your body, and would infect any head to which you were attached."
"It was considered worse than smallpox in our own time," contributed Judith.