seen it before. Numbly she let him lead her back to the laboratory.

"But, Walter—I can't. That's sixty in the past ten hours!" she protested.

"Take it," he said grimly, "then take another. And inhale. Deeply."

"But they make me dizzy."

"Better dizzy than dead. And, by the way—how's your chest?"

"Better. There's no pain now. But the cough is worse."

"It should be."

"Why?"

"You've never smoked enough to get a cigarette cough," he said.

She shook her head dizzily. "You're so right," she said.

"And that's what nearly killed you," he finished triumphantly.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm certain. Naturally, I can't prove it—yet. But that's just a matter of time. Your response just about clinches it. Take a look at the records. Who gets this disease? Youngsters—with nearly one hundred per cent morbidity and one hundred per cent mortality. Adults—less than fifty per cent morbidity—and again one hundred per cent mortality. What makes the other fifty per cent immune? Your crack about leather lungs started me thinking—so I fed the data cards into the computer and keyed them for smoking versus incidence. And I found that not one heavy smoker had died of Thurston's Disease. Light smokers and nonsmokers—plenty of them—but not one single nicotine addict. And there were over ten thousand randomized cards in that spot check. And there's the exact reverse of that classic experiment the lung cancer boys used to sell their case. Among certain religious groups which prohibit smoking there was nearly one hundred per cent mortality of all ages!

"And so I thought since the disease was just starting in you, perhaps I could stop it if I loaded you with tobacco smoke. And it works!"

"You're not certain yet," Mary said. "I might not have had the disease."

"You had the symptoms. And there's virus in your sputum."

"Yes, but—"

"But, nothing! I've passed the word—and the boys in the other labs figure that there's merit in it. We're going to call it Barton's Therapy in your honor. It's going to cause a minor social revolution. A lot of laws are going to have to be rewritten. I can see where it's going to be illegal for children not to smoke. Funny, isn't it?

"I've contacted the maternity ward. They have three babies still alive upstairs. We get all the newborn in this town, or didn't you know. Funny, isn't it, how we still try to reproduce. They're rigging a smoke chamber for the kids. The head nurse is screaming like a wounded tiger, but she'll feel better with live babies to care for. The only bad thing I can see is that it may cut down on her chain smoking. She's been worried a lot about infant mortality.

"And speaking of nurseries—that reminds me. I wanted to ask you something."

"Yes?"

"Will you marry me? I've wanted to ask you before, but I didn't dare. Now I think you owe me something—your life. And I'd like to take care of it from now on."

"Of course I will," Mary said. "And I have reasons, too. If I marry you, you can't possibly do that silly thing you plan."

"What thing?"

"Naming the treatment Barton's. It'll have to be Kramer's." ■