"Superstition, witchcraft, voodoo, dynamite! We've _got_ to keep our face no matter if all of us are murdered. Matter with you three is just a touch of hysteria."
"Fear psychosis is a most contagious disease, but like all contagious diseases most debilitating. It has only one cure: to remove the cause of the fear."
His voice was precise and his words, he felt, showed how he stood and yet were dignified.
"From which I understand you are suggesting we scrap Cub Sterling," MacArthur's angry eyes bore into him like a hot poker, and his mouth drew to a tight line as he slapped his hand upon his desk and stated, "I won't do it without _ample_, _complete_ and _convincing evidence_. Have you any to offer?"
Hoffbein squirmed acutely and he replied evasively:
"Nothing ... tangible.... Only those small and very personal signs which to a man in my branch are so revealing. His hands, the hysterical set of his left shoulder, the peculiar light which comes into his eyes...."
"That'll do!" Dr. Harrison barked. "If I knew any of you had cancer, I'd tell you so to your face. If Bear Sterling had found any man here suffering from an incurable brain tumor, he would have told that man. We are not asking you for symptoms, Hoffbein. Have you any evidence, yes or no?"
"Then let's get on to people who have. Read Ethridge's testimony, please, MacArthur."
Dr. MacArthur picked up the long white sheet of paper and began in an even voice:
"Complying with the decision of the General Staff of the Elijah Wilson Hospital, I admitted Rose Standish, graduate nurse of this institution, as a patient in Medicine Clinic, Ward B, Bed 11, yesterday afternoon. The diagnosis, for the benefit of the nursing staff, being a possible tubercular effusion.
"She received a routine examination from the house staff and from seven-ten until seven-thirty last evening my father, Dr. Sterling, and I went over her. We found her lungs in excellent shape, her heart slightly enlarged, but not seriously so, her general physical condition splendid, with the exception of the fact that she was somewhat thin and underweight. There were no signs of any malady of any kind whatever. Her temperature was normal, her pulse good, though a little rapid, which, considering the circumstances was not surprising, and her spirits commendably calm.