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[Assistant] So I worked with them to put the numbers together, what it would cost them. And I had good news and bad news. The good news was I said to Vermont,


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[Assistant] If you do single payer, you will lower the cost of healthcare in Vermont total by at least 10%. At least. That was conservative.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bad news is to pay for it, you're gonna have to more than double the entire amount of taxes collected in the state of Vermont. And that second sentence just killed everything. Okay?


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[Assistant] Health insurance in America is paid for by, by essentially a hidden tax. What's the hidden tax?


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[Assistant] When your employer gives you health insurance, he didn't just eat the whole cost. He says, look, I'm paying you a total set of compensation, part of which is health insurance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm gonna pass the cost of health insurance on at least partially to your wages. That's essentially a hidden tax. So at MIT,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right now, I have a health insurance plan through MIT, which costs about $18,000 a year for my family. I pay about $6,000 a year on my paycheck. MIT pays $12,000. But the truth is, MIT pays me $12,000 less. They don't just give me that health insurance out of the goodness of their heart. They take it out of my wages. Or at least partially out of my wages. That's essentially a hidden tax that Americans pay every year to finance health insurance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If we went to single payer, that hidden tax would go away. I would get a $12,000 race.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now given the total cost would fall, we should be able to net this out in a way that most people win. The problem then becomes the politics.


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[Assistant] Which is, you're tracing a hidden tax with a not hidden tax, and that's very ugly politically.


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[Assistant] So people don't believe their employers will pay them more if you don't make the employers fight health insurance. Like, oh, the employers will just pocket it. And I could teach them tax incentives to my face is blue. But they just won't believe it. They'll say employers will just pocket it. But I have to pay this new tax for single payer. So that's the first problem single payer faces. Is that people don't really understand that trade-off.


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[Assistant] The problem we talked a little bit about behavioral economics and about loss aversion. There's a general feature of what we call status quo bias in human thinking. Status quo bias. Which is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then to grab something new. We talked about the mug example. Remember I talked about mugs. So basically, you had to pay me more to get the mug away from me than I was willing to pay to buy it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right now, 60% of Americans have employer-sponsored insurance. And if we say to them, give that up for Berniecare, okay, they're gonna be like, eh, I don't know. I kinda like my employer-sponsored insurance, you know, yea, you might tell me Berniecare is gonna be better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's just you talking, I know what I have right now, which is employer sponsored insurance. I don't want to move away from that status quo.


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[Assistant] So status quo bias makes it hard in general to radical changes on an economic system. And this is a perfect example. It'll be hard to get people to give up what they have, uh, for something that they don't really know about yet. Okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's second problem. The third problem is once again about money, but really beyond the scope of this course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is the problem, uh, of the insurance companies. And lobby.


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[Assistant] Which is that the insurance business is big business in America.


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[Assistant] Health insurance companies make about $900 billion a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, if you said to them, hey, health service companies, you know, would you mind, would you guys mind just giving up your $900 billion so we can have single payer healthcare? Then I can say, yeah, it's been a good run. Go for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, they're going to lobby and fight that because they want to keep their business. And that's going to be a pretty hard force to overcome. So a single payer has always struggled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're dealing with these kinds of political problems. And that's why we've been stuck.


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[Assistant] We've been stuck between one alternative to subsidization, the other alternative, which is single payer. Okay.


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[Assistant] And that's where economists have come in, came in, in the 2000s, folks like myself, to talk about a new alternative way to do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, which was essentially to try to bring in some of the best features of these two approaches. Okay.


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[Assistant] And we, the solution we proposed, so I've, if you want to read more about this, I've actually written a comic book to explain it. It's a graphic novel, technically. Uh, it's called Healthcare Reform. It's like nine bucks on Amazon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then brought to the whole country through the Affordable Care Act is what we call a three-legged stool approach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three-legged stool approach. Leg one is deal with this problem. Deal with the insurance discrimination problem. And so leg one is ban insurer discrimination.


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[Assistant] No more pre-existing conditions, no more medical underwriting. That is, if I walk in the door,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you have offered anyone, you have to offer me health insurance at the average price for my age, and you have to offer it to me. So any 40 year old who walks through the door wanting insurance, you have to sell to them, you have to sell to them at a fixed 40 year old price. You can't say you're sick, I'm not gonna sell to you. Okay? So the first step is to ban insurer discrimination. To try to solve that problem. Now, the problem this raises


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you do this alone, you've created a new problem. Which is if you tell insurers, they can't discriminate against the sick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't solve the adverse selection problem, you're just making sure it goes bankrupt. Okay? Now.


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[Assistant] Here's the way I like to think of it. I'm sure none of you have ever gambled on sports. But if you had gambled on sports, you might know the way sports gambling works is that there's a guy in the middle called the bookie, and the bookie's goal


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is to not, is to get exactly the same number of bets on either team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So no matter, so they take no risk and just make their profits off the top. So what bookies do is they set point spreads.


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[Assistant] So the Patriots played the Dolphins this past weekend. I am sadly a Dolphins fan.


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[Assistant] Okay, Patriot Dolphins. The point spread was something like, did anyone know what the spread was in the Patriots game? I think it was like eight points.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that spread was chosen, the Patriots are favored by eight. What that meant was, your bet was either the Patriots win by eight or more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as a result, you want to get, if you set an even bet, Patriots win, Dolphins win, everyone would bet on the Patriots. You'd lose money. So you want an equal distribution of risk. So what you want is you want to set the point spread so the distribution of risk is equal. Then having done that, you just make your money off the top. Now imagine I pass the law.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which said all sportsbooks have to reopen at halftime and make the same bets available that made before the game started.


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[Assistant] Well, for those of you who watched the exciting game this weekend, you realize that half-time became pretty obvious the Patriots weren't going to win by eight. That is a lot closer game than people thought.


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[Assistant] The patrons ended up losing and the insurers would have gone bankrupt. The bookie would have gone bankrupt. Okay. Insurers are just bookies. That's all they are. They just want a predictable distribution of risks.


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[Assistant] So if you tell them you have to offer health insurance starting from the same price, but only the sick are going to buy, they're going to lose money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's why we need the second leg of the stool, which I talked about last time, which was the individual mandate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is to say, okay insurers, if you offer health insurance to everyone at a fair price, we will, as our part of the deal, make sure everyone buys health insurance. So when the 40 year old walks into your office wanting insurance, you can know it's not because they're sick, it's just because they have to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we say to insurers, you price insurance fairly, and in return, we'll make sure you get the fair insurance risk. So you say to me, my MIT insurance, you price insurance at $1,500, don't try to keep out the sick. I'll make sure everyone buys so you make your $100 profit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's the mandate, was essentially trying to bring, was trying to allow, get rid of discrimination by bringing in the entire pool of people so insurers could fairly price.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The problem with that is, you can't mandate something people can't afford. Okay?


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[Assistant] So in Massachusetts, where we're creating this plan in the mid-2000s, the typical family health insurance policy is about $12,000 a year. The poverty line for a family is $22,000 a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We couldn't exactly mandate people if they spent 55% of their income on health insurance. That was not really feasible. So the third leg of the stool we came up with is subsidies to make health insurance affordable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Say if you're low income, we will offset the cost of your insurance, just like the subsidy approach here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'll offset the cost of your insurance to make it more affordable. We'll do it on an income related basis so it doesn't cost so much.


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[Assistant] So we don't have to pay for everyone's insurance like a single payer. Remember, a single payer is essentially taking someone like me.


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[Assistant] Who's happy with my insurance? Swapping it out for a new government insurance. This is saying no. If you're happy with your insurance, stick with your insurance. But if you're low income...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that was the idea that became Romneycare, the plant here in Massachusetts, and eventually then became Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act.


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[Assistant] Uhm, unambiguously yes. Now you won't find anyone more biased than me on this question.


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[Assistant] But I think what's, I think if I've tried to teach you one thing in this class is that we need to rely on real facts wherever possible. And if not, we can turn to theory. But here we have a set of real facts that we can turn to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is that essentially what we did in Massachusetts with this law is we covered about two thirds of the uninsured population.


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[Assistant] Which are about a quarter of the uninsured. It's not an issue in Massachusetts, it's a big issue in other places.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first reason was a court of the uninsured one documented immigrants and the law didn't apply to them. Uh, so right now the upper bound was 75% just to start. The second reason is that the individual mandate contained exemptions to make it both a little more humane and quite frankly politically feasible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, if you could not get, if your income was below the poverty line, you were not subject to the individual mandate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you could not get insurance for less than 8% of your income, you're not subject to individual mandate. So there are exemptions.


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[Assistant] So for those three reasons, a number of people did not get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.


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[Assistant] Now, there's a bunch of interesting questions. Should the mandate penalty be bigger? How should we handle that? There's a lot of, I could go for hours on this. But that's basically the structure of what we had.


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[Assistant] Okay, so basically that worked, it didn't get its universal coverage, it wasn't as effective as a single payer would have been, but it was the largest single insurance expansion in American history.


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[Assistant] And the evidence is clear, it brought many people into insurance and improved people's use of healthcare and improved health.


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[Assistant] So basically, that was kind of the, kind of the, the step forward on access. Now the problem with this is, it's only a step. There's still many uninsured and this has been politically really challenging.


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[Assistant] Okay, because these two answers are quite simple. Just give people one and you'll just have single payer.


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[Assistant] This is super complicated, okay? I talked about these in about 15 seconds each. This took 5 minutes to go through. Okay? And people thought it was just too complicated, didn't make sense, lots of reasons, we can talk about lots of reasons people didn't like it.


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[Assistant] So it's never really been as politically successful as people like myself who helped develop it would have hoped. And it's left a lot of people uninsured. So we haven't solved the access problem. We made a big step forward, but we haven't solved it. And that's the ongoing debate today we see, uh, particularly in the Democratic Party. The Republican Party really doesn't focus much on insurance coverage, but the Democratic Party does.


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[Assistant] And there, that's why there, there's a lot of energy behind single payer right now. It's like, look, you tried the kind of halfway ground.


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[Assistant] That kinda worked, but not, didn't work all the way, so let's just go all the way to single payer. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Actually our people are already eligible for free Medicaid coverage and just don't take it. Now we don't quite know why.


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[Assistant] It could be language barriers they don't understand. A lot of people, a lot, a lot of even legal immigrants just don't understand they're eligible.


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[Assistant] It could be people just don't want a government handout, they're embarrassed taking help from the government. Could be people think, I don't need it, I'm never gonna be sick. We don't know why.


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[Assistant] So part of what the mandate did was say, look, you already have free health insurance, just pay attention and take it. That's part of the effect it had, was bringing people in. So a large part of the coverage increase,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's kind of where we are. So where we stand now in coverage is we've taken a giant step forward.


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[Assistant] We've covered probably about now probably between a third and forty percent of the uninsured in America. But we're sort of right now kind of stuck at that point. Uhm, and the question is, do we


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[Assistant] Just sort of stick there, or do we try something more aggressive at, with the political problems? I don't know, but that's gonna be the challenge, the challenge going forward. Okay, so that's, questions about that. Okay, so that's where I'm problem number one, which is access and coverage. Now let's turn to problem number two, which is cost.


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[Assistant] Cost is way harder. What I just did was the easy part. It's way harder to control healthcare costs, and here's why. Two facts that are seemingly contrary to what you think about it. Fact one, since 1950,


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[Assistant] US spending on healthcare as a share of our economy has quadrupled. We've gone from


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[Assistant] And you value them in the way economists do, which is we have values, statistical values of life, we apply for statistical values of improvement in health.


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[Assistant] The improvement of our health has been worth the money spent in healthcare.


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[Assistant] You guys don't realize that healthcare totally sucked in 1950. Okay, babies born in 1950 were four times as likely to die before they reached their first birthday. If you had a heart attack in 1950, you were four times likely to die within the first year. To put it in terms all young healthy people care about, if you hurt you need skiing in 1950, tour your ACL.


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[Assistant] In 1950, you tore your cartilage. You were in the hospital for a week. You were on crutches for six weeks and arthritis for the rest of your life.


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[Assistant] Today you go to an outpatient center, you get an arthroscopic surgery, you're back on the slopes a couple weeks later.


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[Assistant] Okay, healthcare is just way better, and our health is way better. America is a much better off nation.


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[Assistant] Spending 17% of GDP on health, with how healthy we are, than we were in 1950. And once again, do the economist test.


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[Assistant] No one ever advertises, hey, would you like 1950s healthcare and 1950s prices? No one out there is offering that. Because it's worth it. That's fact one.


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[Assistant] Fact two is, we waste a huge amount of money on healthcare.


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[Assistant] By some estimates, about a third of what we spend on healthcare is totally wasteful. Does nothing to improve our health.


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[Assistant] Now, how can those two facts be consistent? It's worth it, but it's wasteful. Well, the answer is that the other two thirds is super awesome.


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[Assistant] That basically the increase in healthcare where it's been productive has been amazing, but we've dragged along all this unproductive spending too. So that's good news and bad news. So the good news is, well, that's great.


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[Assistant] We just cut out the one third that's unproductive. We've solved our problem.


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[Assistant] Okay, literally if we could just simply cut out the one third of the productive, we'd spend the same amount as Europe does on healthcare. We'd solve our entire long run fiscal problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bad news is that it's easy to look back and see what the one third was. It's hard to look forward and say what it's gonna be. That healthcare comes with a huge amount of uncertainty about what's gonna work and what's gonna be worth it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as a result, it is very hard to say, okay, fine, we'll cover this. We won't cover that because it's hard to know what's going to work and what's not. And so essentially you're in this very difficult spot. So what


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[Assistant] What are the kind, that's the sort of fundamental trade-off that we face. So what are the potential solutions to this problem? So essentially, uhm, there's a couple of different solutions to the problem. Okay? Two different paths we can follow. Okay, path one is the regulatory path.


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[Assistant] What Europe does is they just much, much more heavily regulate the delivery of healthcare. And they do that in two ways.


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[Assistant] One is that you have regulations in some cases about what healthcare you can get. So for instance, England has the euphemistically named NICE, the National Institute for Comparative Effectiveness, which actually tells people they can't get some things. It literally rations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So for example, for many years, it's no longer true. In England, if you're over 75, you could not get a transplant. He said, look, we got a limited number of kidneys. You're going to die soon anyway. Let's give the kidney to a young person. Actually kind of makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One regular route is to literally have regulations like that. That's actually pretty rare.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most countries don't actually regulate in that way. Most countries kind of let you get what your doctor says you should get. There's three routes. So one route is sort of regulatory. The other route


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, one route is sort of what we call sort of regulating uhm, you know, uh, I don't want to call it access, sort of technological regulation. Regulating which technology you can get.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The second kind of regulation in Europe is supply regulation.


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[Assistant] So they basically don't let there be many doctors and uhm, there are not many doctors in hospitals. So there are as many MRI machines in LA as there are in Canada.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, basically just not many places to go get an MRI in Canada. So if you hurt your knee.


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[Assistant] So the only way to control was to actually regulate the supply of medical care. Just give people less stuff they can use.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It turns out there are numbers of market failures and termination of healthcare prices.


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[Assistant] So one market failure, for example, is imperfect information.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know. I can't shop effectively. When I'm in the back of the ambulance, dying from a heart attack, can't be like, you know, that hospital looks expensive. Take me over there. I want to shop there. You can't really shop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a hard, it's a hard market shop and if you couldn't, prices aren't posted. You don't really know what it costs to get your heart attack treated in a different place. This is imperfect information. There's also imperfect competition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is, if you have your heart attack on Cape Cod, there's like one, or Nantucket, which is an island, with no way off but a ferry, there's like one place to go, there's one hospital. They have perfect monopoly. Okay? You just, you can't get off the island, you're gonna die otherwise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's imperfect competition. There's even imperfect competition where you think the competition might be perfect. So take Boston.


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[Assistant] There are so many hospitals in Boston you cannot literally fall down without hitting a hospital. Okay? Yet!


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[Assistant] Why? Well because they have essentially what we call a reputational monopoly.


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[Assistant] That even though they're not an actual physical monopoly, people are like, I want to go to that MGH. They're the best. Even if they're not necessarily the best. They just have this view of being the best. And they can charge higher prices of results, even if their outcomes aren't necessarily better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In other markets, we think perfect information would allow us to get rid of these kinds of inefficiencies. It doesn't exist in healthcare. As a result, perfect competition system does not work in healthcare price setting. And as a result, all other countries


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Regular healthcare prices. Indeed, not all the countries, even the US, are regular healthcare prices. So the Medicare program has regulated prices.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That covers millions of Americans. It's just for the non-government-provided health insurance in the U.S., there's non-regulated prices. Okay? Now, I am not, despite my tone, saying that regulating prices is the answer. It's not clear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Regulating prices comes with a huge number of additional problems. Like we talk about when we talk about regulating monopolies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is, the government may not know the proper price to set. The government may do a terrible job, they may get lobbied, they may be corrupt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Indeed, in the US in the 1970s, virtually every state did regulate hospital prices. And every state went away from that, because they thought the system was broken. So it's not like there's any, it's not like the European solution is an easy answer. That's why the other route that people have been pushing lately is a different route, which is the incentives route.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We don't want a regular supplier prices. What we're going to do is we're going to say, doctors and hospitals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You get together and form these units we call Accountable Care Organizations. ACOs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a big innovation of the Affordable Care Act of Obamacare. Set up these ACOs. These are hospitals and doctors all get together to be basically soup to nuts all the healthcare you need. In one group.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we say to them, we are going to pay you one flat amount of money to care for John.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then within that, you decide what he gets, you decide what prices everybody pays and makes, you figure all that out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, we're going to use flat amount, in particular, that flat amount is not going to rise much. And that's how we're going to bring the cost of healthcare under control.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're basically, every ACO will get an amount, let's, will get an amount that's a flat amount, and it just won't rise much. Okay? And that's how we bring healthcare costs under control. That has a number of wonderful features. First of all, it's much less evil sounding than things like not only build MRIs or regulating what prices.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. Second of all, there's much fewer regulatory tools. We just say here's a flat amount we're giving you per person. And we're done. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the ACOs so far have not actually performed very well. They've not saved much money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So really we're stuck between a route which seems a lot easier, but we haven't really figured out how to make work, and a route which has worked all around the world, but seems politically nightmarish. And that's kind of where we are right now, in terms of controlling costs. And that's the difficult spot we find ourselves in. But, Lem, be clear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is not like, oh, that's sort of interesting, John, I'll go home and forget about it now. This is the entire future.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, healthcare costs are the key to determine the entire fiscal future of the U.S. As I mentioned last lecture,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The U.S. is currently estimated at about $75 trillion in deficit over the long run. 70 trillion of that is healthcare. Okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Healthcare is the single determinant of the US fiscal balance in the long run. Literally, it's the single most important


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like to say that all that matters when we think about the future is healthcare costs and global warming, because either way we're underwater.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, basically those are the two big issues we have to face.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Going forward. So this is a serious issue that your generation is going to have to struggle with. Uh, sorry. Uh, as you, uh, as you go on. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's healthcare in the U.S. in 40 minutes. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This class, you know, there's a famous skit, uhm, from Saturday Night Live, which is what you remember five years after college. It's, and it's five minutes and three and a half minutes of spring break.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, uh, I don't expect you to remember the formula for, you know, if you're not going on in economics, I don't expect you to remember the formula for, you know, deriving a cost function.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, what I expect you to get out of this class is A, an interest in economics and I hope you'll go on. I sincerely hope that. And I'm available to anyone who wants to talk about the pros and cons of going on in economics. Obviously I'm more pro, but I'm happy to talk about it. Okay, so I'm a bit, so always feel free to reach out about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, this is, we are in an era, as I said in my very first lecture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the joke is, a doctor, uhm, a doctor, a priest, and an economist go golfing. They get on the golf course, and they hit the golf course, and they're behind someone going incredibly slowly. I know there's many golfers among you, but the idea is if you're very slow,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 50 people lined up behind this guy. And these folks are so disgusted, they quit after nine holes, they go back to the clubhouse, they're pounding their beers like, what an asshole, I can't believe he wouldn't let us play through, it ruined our day. And so it comes up to them and says, excuse me, are you new to this club? And they said, yes, we are. Said, well, I could tell you're new to the club, because if you weren't new, you would have known the person you're playing behind is blind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the people at the table are like, wow, I feel terrible. And the doctor goes, I feel terrible. I can't believe myself, a man of healing, would be so insulting towards someone who's blind. I'm going to dedicate a wing of my hospital to the blind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In terms of the priest, the priest says, I can't believe myself. I'm the man of the cloth. The man is supposed to care for the un, uh, you know, the less able in society would do this. I'm gonna set up a free soup kitchen for the blind.


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[Assistant] And they turn to the economist, the economist says, well, if he's blind, why doesn't he just play at night?


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[Assistant] The point is that the job of the economist is to sort of be annoying and look for


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[Assistant] The basic flaws in arguments to understand them, to ask the difficult questions, but to have responsible answers.


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[Assistant] That's incredible. MP, just wanted to let you know. I got my byline pulled off that article. And gave my landlord notice.


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[Assistant] If the world is gonna get turned into an alien wasteland, there's no one I'd rather be glued up with than you.


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[Assistant] Keep an eye out for Harry. I'll let you know if I hear anything


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[Assistant] The meteorite is the source of all the power, right? Creating goo, creating symbiotes. But it was useless until Harry repaired it.


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[Assistant] Right, so what if we crank the power up? Like way past 11.


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[Assistant] While I grab the space rock. For illustrative purposes.


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[Assistant] For the last few years, tragedy has tried to tear the city apart. But we somehow kept going. We battled sickness, evil, cataclysm. We are tired, anxious, stressed, numb. But we have never lost hope.


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[Assistant] What if it no longer exists?


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[Assistant] Over the last half hour, I've talked about how these events have changed me. But what about you?


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[Assistant] In this ongoing series, I will be talking with people throughout the city. Exploring our new behaviors.


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[Assistant] New routines, new thoughts and feelings. I hope you'll join me on this journey.


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[Assistant] This has been Mary Jane Watson and you're listening to The New Normal.


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[Assistant] Uh, hi, nice to meet you. Oh, and uh, this is my daughter, Cindy.


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[Assistant] When McMurdo awoke next morning he had good reason to remember his initiation into the Lodge.


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[Assistant] His head ached with the effect of the drink, and his arm, where he had been branded, was hot and swollen.


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[Assistant] Having his own peculiar source of income, he was irregular in his attendance at his


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[Assistant] So he had a late breakfast and remained at home for the morning writing a long letter to a friend. Afterwards he read the Daily Herald.


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[Assistant] In a special column put in at the last moment, he read


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[Assistant] Outrage at the Herald office. Editor seriously injured.


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[Assistant] It was a short account of the facts with which he was himself more familiar than the writer could have been.


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[Assistant] The matter is now in the hands of the police, but it can hardly be hoped that their exertions will be attended by any better results than in the past. Some of the men were recognized, and there is hope that a conviction may be obtained.


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[Assistant] The source of the outrage was, it need hardly be said, that infamous society which has held this community in bondage for so long a period, and against which the Herald has taken so uncompromising a stand.


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[Assistant] Mr. Stanger's many friends will rejoice to hear that, though he has been cruelly and brutally beaten, and though he has sustained severe injuries about the head, there is no immediate danger to his life.


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[Assistant] Below it stated that a guard of police armed with Winchester rifles had been requisitioned for the defence of the office.


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[Assistant] McMurdo had laid down the paper and was lighting his pipe with a hand which was shaky from the excesses of the previous evening, when there was a knock outside, and his landlady brought to him a note which had just been handed in by a lad. It was unsigned and ran thus.


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[Assistant] I should wish to speak to you, but would rather not do so in your house. You will find me beside the flagstaff upon Miller Hill. If you will come there now, I have something which is important for you to hear, and for me to say.


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[Assistant] McMurdo read the note twice with the utmost surprise, for he could not imagine what it meant, or who was the author of it.


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[Assistant] Had it been in a feminine hand, he might have imagined that it was the beginning of one of those adventures which had been familiar enough in his past life.


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[Assistant] But it was the writing of a man, and of a well-educated one too.


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[Assistant] Finally after some hesitation, he determined to see the matter through.


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[Assistant] Miller Hill is an ill-kept public park in the very centre of the town.


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[Assistant] In summer it is a favourite resort of the people, but in the winter it is desolate enough.


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[Assistant] From the top of it one has a view not only of the whole straggling, grimy town, but of the winding valley beneath, with its scattered mines and factories blackening the snow on each side of it, and of the wooded and white-capped ranges flanking it.


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[Assistant] McMurdo strolled up the winding path hedged in with evergreens until he reached the deserted restaurant which forms the centre of summer gaiety.


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[Assistant] Beside it was a bare flagstaff, and underneath it a man, his hat drawn down and the collar of his overcoat turned up.


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[Assistant] When he turned his face, McMurdo saw that it was Brother Morris, he who had incurred the anger of the body-master the night before. The lodged sign was given, and exchanged as they met.


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[Assistant] I want to have a word with you, Mr. McMurdo," said the older man, speaking with a hesitation which showed that he was on delicate ground. It was kind enough of you to come. Why did you not put your name to the note? One has to be cautious, Mr.


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[Assistant] One never knows either who to trust or who not to trust. Surely one may trust brothers of the lodge.


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[Assistant] No, no, not always! cried Morris with vehemence.


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[Assistant] Whatever we say, even what we think seems to get back to that man McGinty.


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[Assistant] "'Look here,' said McMurdo sternly. "'It was only last night, as you know well, that I swore good faith to our body-master. Would you be asking me to break my oath?'


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[Assistant] If that is the view you take," said Morris sadly.


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[Assistant] I can only say that I am sorry I gave you the trouble to come and meet me.


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[Assistant] Things have come to a bad pass when two free citizens cannot speak their thoughts to each other.


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[Assistant] I am a newcomer, as you know, and I am strange to it all. It is not for me to open my mouth, Mr. Morris, and if you think well to say anything to me, I am here to hear it.


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[Assistant] And to take it back to Boss McGinty," said Morris bitterly.


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[Assistant] Indeed, then, you do me injustice there," cried McMurdo.


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[Assistant] For myself I am loyal to the lodge, and so I tell you straight, but I would be a poor creature if I were to repeat to any other what you might say to me in confidence. It'll go no further than me, though I warn you that you may get neither help nor sympathy.


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[Assistant] Still, you are new to it, and your conscience cannot yet be as hardened as theirs. That was why I thought to speak with you. Well, what have you to say? If you give me away, may a curse be on you. Sure, I said I would not. I would ask you, then,


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[Assistant] When you joined the Freeman Society in Chicago and swore vows of charity and fidelity,


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[Assistant] Call it crime!" cried Morris, his voice vibrating with passion.


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[Assistant] You have seen little of it, if you can call it anything else.


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[Assistant] Was it crime last night when a man old enough to be your father was beaten till the blood dripped from his white hairs?


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[Assistant] Was that crime, or what else would you call it?


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[Assistant] There are some would say it was war," said McMurdo. A war of two classes, with all in, so that each struck as best it could.


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[Assistant] Well, did you think of such a thing when you joined the Freeman Society at Chicago? No, I'm bound to say I did not.


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[Assistant] Nor did I, when I joined it at Philadelphia.


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[Assistant] It was just a benefit club and a meeting place for one's fellows.


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[Assistant] Then I heard of this place, cursed the hour that the name first fell upon my ears, and I came to better myself. My God, to better myself! My wife and three children came with me.


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[Assistant] I started a dry goods store on Market Square, and I prospered well.


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[Assistant] The word had gone round that I was a freeman, and I was forced to join the local lodge, same as you did last night.


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[Assistant] I have the badge of shame on my forearm, and something worse branded on my heart.


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[Assistant] I found that I was under the orders of a black villain, and caught in a meshwork of crime. What could I do?


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[Assistant] I know well that it means murder to me, and God knows what to my wife and children. Oh, man, it is awful, awful.


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[Assistant] He put his hands to his face and his body shook with convulsive sobs. McMurdo shrugged


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[Assistant] You were too soft for the job," said he. You're the wrong sort for such work. I had a conscience and a religion, but they made me a criminal among them. I was chosen for a job. If I backed down, I knew well what would come to me. Maybe I'm a coward.


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[Assistant] Maybe it's the thought of my poor little woman, and the children that makes me one. Anyway, I went. I guess it will haunt me for ever.


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[Assistant] It was a lonely house, twenty miles from here over the range yonder.


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[Assistant] I was told off at the door, same as you were last night. They could not trust me with the job. The others went in. When they came out, their hands were crimson to the wrists.


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[Assistant] As we turned away, a child was screaming out of the house behind us.


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[Assistant] It was a boy of five who had seen his father murdered.


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[Assistant] I nearly fainted with the horror of it, and yet I had to keep a bold and smiling face, for well I knew that if I did not it would be out of my house that they would come next with their bloody hands, and it would be my little Fred that would be screaming for his father. But I was a criminal then.


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[Assistant] Part sharer in a murder, lost forever in this world, and lost also in the next. I am a good Catholic.


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[Assistant] But the priest would have no word with me when he heard I was a scourer, and I am excommunicated from my faith. That's how it stands with me, and I see you going down the same road, and I ask you what the end is to be. Are you ready to be a cold-blooded murderer also, or can we do anything to stop it?" "'What would you do?' asked McMurdo abruptly. "'You'd not inform.'


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[Assistant] Sure, the very thought would cost me my life. That's well," said McMurdo.


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[Assistant] I'm thinking that you're a weak man, and that you make too much of the matter. Too much? Wait till you have lived here longer.


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[Assistant] Look down the valley. See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it.


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[Assistant] I tell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that over the heads of the people.


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[Assistant] It is the valley of fear, the valley of death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn.


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[Assistant] Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.


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[Assistant] Well, I'll let you know what I think when I have seen more," said McMurdo carelessly.


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[Assistant] What is very clear is that you are not the man for the place, and that the sooner you sell out, if you only get a dime a dollar for what the business is worth, the better it will be for you.


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[Assistant] What you said is safe with me, but, Bagar, if I thought you were an informer— No, no!" cried Morris piteously. Well, let it rest at that.


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[Assistant] I'll bear what you've said in mind, and maybe some day I'll come back to it. I expect you meant kindly by speaking to me like this. Now I'll be getting home." One word before you go," said Morris. We may have been seen together. They may want to know what we have spoken about. Ah, that's well thought of. I offer you a clerkship in my store.


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[Assistant] And I refuse it. That's our business. Well, so long, Brother Morris, and may you find things go better with you in the future.


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[Assistant] That same afternoon, as McMurdo sat smoking, lost in thought beside the stove of his sitting-room, the door swung open, and its framework was filled with the huge figure of Boss McGinty.


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[Assistant] He passed the sign, and then, seating himself opposite to the young man, he looked at him steadily for some time, a look which was as steadily returned.


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[Assistant] But I thought I'd stretch a point and drop down to see you in your own house.


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[Assistant] I'm proud to see you here, counsellor," McMurdo answered heartily, bringing his whisky-bottle out of the cupboard. It's an honour that I had not expected. How's the arm? asked the boss. McMurdo made a wry face.


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[Assistant] I'm not forgetting it," he said, but it's worth it. Yes, it's worth it, the other answered, to those that are loyal and go through with it, and there are help to the lodge.


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[Assistant] What were you speaking to Brother Morris about on Miller Hill this morning?


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[Assistant] The question came so suddenly that it was well that he had his answer prepared. He burst into a hearty laugh. Ha! Morris didn't know I could earn a living here at home.


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[Assistant] You shan't know either, for he's got too much conscience for the likes of me. But he's a good hearted old chap.


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[Assistant] It was his idea that I was at a loose end, and that he would do me a good turn by offering me a clerkship in a dry goods store. Oh, that was it. Yes, that was it. And you refused it. Sure.


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[Assistant] Couldn't I earn ten times as much in my own bedroom with four hours' work? That's so. But I wouldn't get about too much with Morris. Why not? Well, I guess because I tell you not. That's enough for most folk in these parts. It may be enough for most folk.


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[Assistant] But it ain't enough for me, counselor," said McMurdo boldly. If you're a judge of men, you'll know that.


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[Assistant] The swarthy giant glared at him, and his hairy paw closed for an instant round the glass, as though he would hurl it at the head of his companion.


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[Assistant] Then he laughed in his loud, boisterous, insincere fashion. Ha! You're a queer card for sure, said he. Well, if you want more reasons, I'll give them. Did Morris say nothing to you against the lodge? No, nor against me.


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[Assistant] But in his heart he's not a loyal brother. We know that well.


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[Assistant] So we watch him, and we wait for the time to admonish him. I'm thinking that the time is drawing near. There's no room for scabby sheep in our pen. But if you keep company with a disloyal man,


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[Assistant] There's no chance of my keeping company with him, for I dislike the man," McMurdo answered.


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[Assistant] If it was any man but you, you would not choose the word to me twice.


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[Assistant] Well, that's enough," said McGinty, draining off his glass.


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[Assistant] How ye ever came to learn that I had spoken with Maris at all?" McGinty laughed.


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[Assistant] It's my business to know what goes on in this township," said he.


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[Assistant] I guess you'd best reckon on my hearing all that passes. Well, time's up, and I'll just


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[Assistant] But his leave-taking was cut short in a very unexpected fashion.


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[Assistant] With a sudden crash, the door flew open, and three frowning, intent faces glared in at them from under the peaks of police caps.


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[Assistant] McMurdo sprang to his feet and half-drew his revolver, but his arm stopped midway as he became conscious that two Winchester rifles were levelled at his head.


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[Assistant] A man in uniform advanced into the room, a six shooter in his hand.


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[Assistant] It was Captain Marvin, one of Chicago and now of the mine constabulary,


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[Assistant] He shook his head with a half smile at McMurdo.


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[Assistant] I thought you'd be getting into trouble, Mr. Crooked McMurdo of Chicago," said he. Can't keep out of it, can you? Take your hat and come along with us.


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[Assistant] You're standing out in this deal, Councillor McGinty," said the police captain.


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[Assistant] We're not out after you, but after this man McMurdo. It is for you to help, not to hinder us in our duty.


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[Assistant] He is a friend of mine, and I'll answer for his conduct," said the boss.


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[Assistant] By all accounts, Mr. McGinty, you may have to answer for your own conduct some of these days," the captain answered.


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[Assistant] This man McMurdo was a crook before ever he came here, and he's a crook still. Cover him, patrolman, while I disarm him."


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[Assistant] Maybe Captain Marvin, if you and I were alone and face to face, you would not take me so easily.


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[Assistant] Where's your warrant?" asked McGinty. By Gar, a man might as well live in Russia as in Vermissa while folk like you were running the police. It's a capitalist outrage, and you'll hear more of it, I reckon.


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[Assistant] You do what you think is your duty the best way you can, counselor. We'll look after ours. What am I accused of? asked McMurdo.


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[Assistant] Of being concerned in the beating of old editor Stanger at the Herald Office. It wasn't your fault that it isn't a murder charge.


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[Assistant] Well, if that's all you have against him," cried McGinty with a laugh, you can save yourself a deal of trouble by dropping it right now. This man was with me in my saloon playing poker up to midnight, and I can bring a dozen to prove it.


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[Assistant] That's your affair, and I guess you can settle it in court tomorrow. Meanwhile, come on, McMurdo, and come quietly if you don't want a gun across your head.


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[Assistant] You stand wide, Mr. McGinney, for I warn you, I'll stand no resistance when I'm on duty.


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[Assistant] So determined was the appearance of the captain that both McMurdo and his boss were forced to accept the situation. The latter managed to have a few whispered words with the prisoner before they parted. What about—? He jerked his thumb upward to signify the coining plant.


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[Assistant] All right," whispered McMurdo, who had devised a safe hiding place under the floor.


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[Assistant] I'll bid you good-bye," said the boss, shaking hands. I'll see Riley, the lawyer, and take the defence upon myself. Take my word for it that they won't be able to hold you.


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[Assistant] I wouldn't bet on that. Guard the prisoner you two and shoot him if he tries any games. I'll search the house before I leave.


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[Assistant] He did so, but apparently found no trace of the concealed plant.


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[Assistant] When he'd descended he and his men escorted McMurdo to headquarters. Darkness had fallen, and a keen blizzard was blowing so that the streets were nearly deserted. But a few loiterers followed the group, and emboldened by invisibility, shouted imprecations at the prisoner.


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[Assistant] Lynch the cursed scourer, they cried. Lynch him!


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[Assistant] They laughed and jeered as he was pushed into the police station.


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[Assistant] After a short formal examination from the inspector in charge, he was put into the common cell.


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[Assistant] Here, he found Baldwin and three other criminals of the night before.


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[Assistant] All arrested that afternoon, and waiting their trial next morning.


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[Assistant] But even within this inner fortress of the lore, the long arm of the freemen was able to extend.


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[Assistant] Late at night there came a jailer with a straw bundle for their bedding, out of which he extracted two bottles of whisky, some glasses, and a pack of cards. They spent a hilarious night without an anxious thought as to the ordeal of the morning. Nor had they cause, as the result was to show.


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[Assistant] The magistrate could not possibly on the evidence have held them for a higher court.


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[Assistant] On the one hand, the compositors and pressmen were forced to admit that the light was uncertain, that they were themselves much perturbed, and that it was difficult for them to swear to the identity of the assailants, although they believed that the accused were among them.


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[Assistant] Cross-examined by the clever attorney who had been engaged by McGinty, they were even more nebulous in their evidence.


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[Assistant] The injured man had already deposed that he was so taken by surprise by the suddenness of the attack that he could state nothing beyond the fact that the first man who struck him wore a mustache.


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[Assistant] He added that he knew them to be scourers, since no one else in the community could possibly have any enmity to him.


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[Assistant] It was clearly shown by the united and unfaltering evidence of six citizens, including that high municipal official Councillor McGinty,


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[Assistant] That the men had been at a card party at the Union house until an hour very much later, and the commission of the outrage.


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[Assistant] Needless to say that they were discharged with something very near to an apology from the bench for the inconvenience to which they had been put, together with an implied censure of Captain Marvin and the police for their officious zeal.


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[Assistant] The verdict was greeted with loud applause by a court in which McMurdo saw many familiar faces. Brothers of the lodge smiled and waved.


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[Assistant] We spoke about some of the more basic variants of version control.


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[Assistant] In this lesson, I want to talk about branches and branching.


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[Assistant] Now let's start off with a simple example. Say if we had,


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[Assistant] version one and two, so two commits that were made to our local repository. And at this point, we realized that we want to maybe try out something different, maybe build a new feature or just to mess around with a new idea or concept.


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[Assistant] What we can do is instead of continuing to commit to the main branch that you see here, we can also create a side branch. After the second commit, we create a new branch.


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[Assistant] And we start committing to this new branch or this experimental branch.


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[Assistant] We add some features and we write some code. Simultaneously we can continue working on the main branch.


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[Assistant] Putting out all those essential updates or bits of code that are maintaining our main project. But at the same time, we can continue to update and work on this experimental branch, trying things out and committing our experiments to this experimental branch.


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[Assistant] So now we have two branches that are parallel to each other and they can be developed simultaneously. If at some point in the future that we decide that that experiment was really fruitful and the feature that we built in it was really, really great and we'd like to merge it,


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[Assistant] Back to the main branch or to the main project, then that can be done really easily as well by simply placing a merge request in.


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[Assistant] And we can bring all of those changes that we experimented with, that we messed around with, back to the main project and check to see if there's any conflict with the main branch code. And if not, or if after a little bit of editing, then we can bring all of those changes into the main working branch.


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[Assistant] And then we can continue working from here onto the next commit or we can make more branches.


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[Assistant] And very often what you see in practice is that there'll be multiple branches being worked on at the same time for any given large project.


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[Assistant] And the reason is because sometimes you're developing new features. Sometimes you are fixing bugs and all of these things may break your main project. So you don't want to do it on the main branch. You only want to put it onto the main branch once you know that everything is working fine.


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[Assistant] And then you can bring your code back to the working copy ready for shipment and deployment.


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[Assistant] Let's take a look at how this would work in reality.


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[Assistant] Now let's say we navigate back to our story directory.


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[Assistant] And inside here, we've still got our previous three chapters and they are under version control. So if we just have a look at git log, you can see that this is currently the most recent commit and it's also mirrored in our remote. Let's try and do this locally first.


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[Assistant] If I decided that I want to create a new branch, you can simply just write git.


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[Assistant] Hit enter. And now you can check out what branches you have by just writing git branch without the name.


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[Assistant] And you can see that you've got one branch called alien plot and another one called main. And the asterix shows you which branch you are currently on. So we're currently on the main branch. We can switch to the alien plot by simply writing git checkout alien plot.


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[Assistant] Okay. As it says, we have now switched to the branch called alien plot. Now it is inside this branch that I'm going to make some changes to my chapters.


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[Assistant] Now I'm going to make some completely nonsensical modification to my files. So let's change chapter one, let's change chapter two.


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[Assistant] Okay, there we go. Okay, so we've made some modifications to chapter one, chapter two, and we've decided to change some of the pre-existing written text to integrate a space-themed or alien-themed plot.


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[Assistant] Let's go ahead and commit that. So remember we have to do git add and then git commit.


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[Assistant] Okay, now hit enter and we've made our commits.


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[Assistant] Now if we do a git log, we can see that we have two commits made on the main branch and we have one commit made on the alien plot branch.


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[Assistant] So now let's say that we go back onto our main branch. Whenever you're confused where you are, you can always do a git branch to check and see where the asterisk is. And the asterisk is obviously where you are.


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[Assistant] So let's do a git checkout main to go back to the main branch.


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[Assistant] So you can see that our main branch is unchanged with respect to the space or alien plot that we did just now. Nothing has changed over here. So while on the main branch, I'm going to create a new file. I'm going to call it chapter four dot text.


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[Assistant] And inside chapter four, let's add something.


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[Assistant] Okay, and hit enter and say, by the way, I have no idea what I'm typing. I'm now making up and destroying probably in the process, a masterpiece, but it's okay. So we now have a chapter four on our main branch and I'm going to go ahead and do a git add and git commit.


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[Assistant] Now there's ways of combining add and commit together in the same command, but I think if you're new to Git, it's always good to really know in your head exactly what's going on. So I recommend actually separating those two bits out. Let's go ahead and give it a commit message and chapter four. Okay. So Git log, let's see, what have we got?


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[Assistant] We are currently only looking at the main branch and we have three commits.


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[Assistant] This is the position of our remote. So on our GitHub repository, this was the latest commit that it could see. But on our local Git repository, this is in fact the latest commit, the one that we just made where we added chapter four.


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[Assistant] And you can see that if I switch between the branches, say if I go over to,


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[Assistant] Alien plot branch and hit enter. You can see that our local files actually change as I switch branches. Let's just say that I'm quite happy with the changes I've made in terms of my alien plot addition and I would like to merge these changes


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Back into my main branch. So I've done a little bit of experimentation on a separate branch. I've, um, you know, messed with a few things and I think it was a great experiment. So I'm going to put it back into our main branch.


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[Assistant] In order to do that, what you have to do is go back to the main branch. So git checkout main.


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[Assistant] And while we're on the main branch, we're going to merge the changes inside the alien plot branch. So we use the command git merge.


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[Assistant] And we're going to specify the branch name, which was alien plot.


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[Assistant] Hit enter. And this opens up Vim, which is a text editor. And this allows you to add a merge message if you wish. And alternatively, as we're going to do here, we're just going to leave it empty and you're going to write colon, Q, exclamation mark to save and quit.


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[Assistant] And you can see now I've actually absorbed those changes from the alien plot. And you can see that because if I do get


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Branch, I am on the main branch. The alien plot branch still exists, by the way.


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[Assistant] If you have a look at git log, you can see that I've got some of the previous commits, but I've also got this merge branch alien plot, which was my most recent commit. Now at this point, let's do a git push.


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[Assistant] To our origin main and remember to add the dash u flag.


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[Assistant] That's completed and let's check it out online. If we go over to our story repository, you can see that there's now five commits.


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[Assistant] We modify chapter one and two, we add a chapter four and we merge the alien plot branch. So if you go into insights and go to network, now if I zoom in on this network graph, then you can see this is the process that we've gone through.


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[Assistant] This is the main branch where we did chapter one and chapter two.


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[Assistant] And then at this point, after I created chapter two and three,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I created a new branch and while inside this branch, I made a commit that modified chapter one and two to have an alien theme.


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[Assistant] And then on the main branch, I continued developing the main branch, adding a chapter four.


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[Assistant] But subsequently I realized that I did a great job, uhm, adding alien themes to our storyline and I decided to merge it back into the main branch. This is basically a graphical representation of what's been going on.


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[Assistant] So that was us creating a branch and merging it. Now why don't you go ahead and have a go and create your own repository.


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[Assistant] Both locally as well as on GitHub and you know, write a story or write a poem, anything you like and check out the amazingness that is branching using Git.


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[Assistant] Guy still needs to practice rolling up into a ball.


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[Assistant] Adventure 5. The Adventure of the Dying Detective.


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[Assistant] Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long suffering woman.


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[Assistant] Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often undesirable characters, but her remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life which must have sorely tried her patience.


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[Assistant] His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice with indoors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London.


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[Assistant] On the other hand his payments were princely.


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[Assistant] I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the price which Holmes paid for his rooms during the years that I was with him. The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to interfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem. She was fond of him, too,


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[Assistant] For he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women.


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[Assistant] He disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent.


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[Assistant] Knowing how genuine was her regard for him, I listened earnestly to her story when she came to my rooms in the second year of my married life, and told me of the sad condition to which my poor friend was reduced.


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[Assistant] For three days he's been sinking, and I doubt if he will last the day. He would not let me get a doctor.


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[Assistant] This morning, when I saw his bones sticking out of his face and his great bright eyes looking at me, I could stand no more of it.


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[Assistant] With your leave, or without it, Mr. Holmes, I am going for a doctor this very hour," said I.


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[Assistant] I wouldn't waste an hour in coming to him, sir, or you may not see him alive.


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[Assistant] I was horrified, for I'd heard nothing of his illness.


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[Assistant] I need not say this, I rushed for my coat and my hat. As we drove back, I asked for the details.


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[Assistant] There is little I can tell you, sir. He has been working at a case down at Rotherhithe, in an alley near the river, and he has brought this illness back with him. He took to his bed on Wednesday afternoon and has never moved since, for these three days neither food nor drink has passed his lips. Good God! Why did you not call in a doctor? He wouldn't have it, sir.


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[Assistant] You know how masterful he is. I didn't dare to disobey him, but he's not long for this world as you'll see for yourself the moment that you set eyes on him.


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[Assistant] It was indeed a deplorable spectacle. In the dim light of a foggy November day, the sick room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt, wasted face staring at me from the bed which sent a chill to my heart. His eyes had the brightness of fever.


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[Assistant] There was a hectic flush upon either cheek and dark crusts clung to his lips. The thin hands upon the coverlet twitched incessantly. His voice was croaking and spasmodic. He laid listlessly as I entered the room, but the sight of me brought a gleam of recognition to his eyes.


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[Assistant] Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days," said he in a feeble voice, but with something of his old carelessness of manner. My dear fellow! I cried, approaching him.


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[Assistant] Stand back, stand right back, said he, with a sharp imperiousness which I had associated only with moments of crisis.


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[Assistant] If you approach me, Watson, I shall order you out of the house. But why?


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[Assistant] Because it is my desire. Is that not enough? Yes, Mrs. Hudson was right. He was more masterful than ever. It was pitiful, however, to see his exhaustion. I only wish to help, I explained.


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[Assistant] Exactly. You will help best by doing what you are told. Certainly, Holmes. He relaxed the austerity of his manner.


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[Assistant] You are not angry? he asked, gasping for breath.


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[Assistant] Poor devil. How could I be angry when I saw him lying in such a plight before me? It's for your own sake, Watson," he croaked. For my sake?


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[Assistant] I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolly disease from Sumatra, a thing that the Dutch know more about than we, though they may have made little of it up to date. One thing only is certain, it is infallibly deadly, and it is horribly contagious.


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[Assistant] He spoke now with a feverish energy, the long hands twitching and jerking as he motioned me away.


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[Assistant] Contagious by touch, Watson. That's it, by touch. Keep your distance and all is well.


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[Assistant] Good heavens, Holmes. Do you suppose that such a consideration waives with me of an instant?


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[Assistant] It would not affect me in the case of a stranger. Do you imagine it would have prevented me from doing my duty to so old a friend?


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[Assistant] Again I advanced, but he repulsed me with a look of furious anger. If you will stand there I will talk. If you do not you must leave the room.


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[Assistant] I have so deep a respect for the extraordinary qualities of Holmes that I have always deferred to his wishes even when I least understood them.


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[Assistant] But now all my professional instincts were aroused.


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[Assistant] Let him be my master elsewhere. I at least was his in a sick room.


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[Assistant] Ohms," said I, you are not yourself. A sick man is but a child, and so I will treat you. Whether you like it or not, I will examine your symptoms and treat you for them." He looked at me with venomous eyes.


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[Assistant] If I am to have a doctor, whether I will or not, let me at least have someone in whom I have confidence," said he. And you have none in me? In your friendship, certainly.


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[Assistant] But facts are facts, Watson, and after all, you're only a general practitioner with very limited experience and mediocre qualifications. It is painful to have to say these things, but you leave me no choice. I was bitterly hurt.


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[Assistant] Such a remark is unworthy of you, Holmes. It shows me very clearly the state of your own nerves. But you have no confidence in me. I would not intrude my services.


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[Assistant] Let me bring Sir Jasper Meek, or Penrose Fisher, or any of the best men in London.


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[Assistant] You mean well, Watson," said the sick man, with something between a sob and a groan.


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[Assistant] Shall I demonstrate your own ignorance? What do you know, prey of Tapanuli fever? What do you know of the Black Formosa corruption? I've never heard of either.


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[Assistant] There are many problems of disease, many strange pathological possibilities in the East, Watson. He paused after each sentence to collect his failing strength.


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[Assistant] I have learned so much during some recent researches which have a medico-criminal aspect.


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[Assistant] But I happen to know that Dr. Ainstree, the greatest living authority upon tropical disease, is now in London.


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[Assistant] All remonstrance is useless, Holmes. I am going this instant to fetch him." I turned resolutely to the door. Never have I had such a shock. In an instant


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[Assistant] With a tiger spring the dying man had intercepted me. I heard the sharp snap of a twisted key


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[Assistant] The next moment he had staggered back to his bed exhausted and panting after his one tremendous outflame of energy.


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[Assistant] You won't take the key from me by force, Watson.


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[Assistant] I've got you, my friend. Here you are, and here you will stay until I will otherwise, but I'll humour you.


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[Assistant] All this in little gasps with terrible struggles for breath between. You've only my own good at heart, of course I know that very well.


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[Assistant] I promise you we'll go at six. Are you content to wait? I seem to have no choice. Non in the world, Watson. Thank you.


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[Assistant] Not from the man you mention, but from the one that I choose. By all means.


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[Assistant] The first three sensible words that you have uttered since you entered this room, Watson. You will find some books over there. I am somewhat exhausted.


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[Assistant] I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor.


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[Assistant] At 6 Watson we resume our conversation.


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[Assistant] But it was destined to be resumed long before that hour, and in circumstances which give me a shock hardly second to that caused by his spring to the door. I had stood for some minutes, looking at the silent figure in the bed. His face was almost covered by the clothes, and he appeared to be asleep.


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[Assistant] Then, unable to settle down to reading, I walked slowly round the room, examining the pictures of celebrated criminals with which every wall was adorned. Finally, in my aimless pirambulation, I came to the mantelpiece.


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[Assistant] A litter of pipes, tobacco pouches, syringes, pen knives, revolver cartridges, and other debris was scattered over it.


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[Assistant] In the midst of these was a small black-and-white ivory box with a sliding lid. It was a neat little thing, and I had stretched out my hand to examine it more closely when—it was a dreadful cry that he gave—a yell which might have been heard down the street.


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[Assistant] My skin went cold and my hair bristled at that horrible scream


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[Assistant] As I turned, I caught a glimpse of a convulsed face and frantic eyes. I stood paralyzed with a little box in my hand.


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[Assistant] Put it down, down this instant, Watson. This instant, I pray." His head sank back upon the pillow.


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[Assistant] You a doctor. You are enough to drive a patient into an asylum. Sit down, man, and let me have my rest.


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[Assistant] The incident left a most unpleasant impression upon my mind.


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[Assistant] The violent and causeless excitement, followed by this brutality of speech, so far removed from his usual suavity, showed me how deep was the disorganization of his mind.


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[Assistant] Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable.


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[Assistant] I sat in silent dejection until the stipulated time had passed. He seemed to have been watching the clock as well as I, for it was hardly six before he began to talk with the same feverish animation as before. "'Now, Watson,' said he, "'have you any change in your pocket?' "'Yes.' "'Any silver?' "'A good deal.' "'How many half-crowns?'


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[Assistant] However, such as they are, you can put them in your watch pocket, and all the rest of your money in your left trouser pocket. Thank you. It will balance you so much better like that.


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[Assistant] This was raving insanity. He shuddered and again made a sound between a cough and a sob.


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[Assistant] You will now light the gas, Watson, but you will be very careful that not for one instant shall it be more than half on. I implore you to be careful, Watson. Thank you, that is excellent. No, you need not draw the blind.


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[Assistant] Kindly raise that small ivory box with its assistance. Place it here among the papers. Good. You can now go and fetch Mr. Culverton Smith of 13 Lower Burke Street.


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[Assistant] To tell the truth, my desire to fetch a doctor had somewhat weakened, for poor Holmes was so obviously delirious that it seemed dangerous to leave him.


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[Assistant] It may surprise you to know that the man upon earth who is best versed in this disease is not a medical man, but a planter. Mr. Culverton Smith is a well-known resident of Sumatra, now visiting London.


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[Assistant] An outbreak of the disease upon his plantation, which was distant from medical aid, caused him to study it himself with some rather far-reaching consequences.


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[Assistant] He is a very methodical person, and I did not desire you to start before six, because I was well aware that you would not find him in his study.


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[Assistant] If you could persuade him to come here and give us the benefit of his unique experience of this disease.


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[Assistant] The investigation of which has been his dearest hobby, I cannot doubt that he could help me.


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[Assistant] I gave Holmes's remark as a consecutive whole and will not attempt to indicate how they were interrupted by gaspings for breath and those clutchings of his hands which indicated the pain from which he was suffering.


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[Assistant] His appearance had changed for the worse during the few hours that I had been with him. Those hectic spots were more pronounced, the eyes shone more brightly out of darker hollows, and a cold sweat glimmered upon his brow.


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[Assistant] He still retained, however, the jaunty gallantry of his speech. To the last gasp he would always be the master. You will tell him exactly how you have left me, said he. You will convey the very impression which is in your own mind—a dying man, a dying and delirious man. Indeed, I cannot think


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[Assistant] Why, the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters. So prolific the creatures seem. Ah, I'm wondering. Strange how the brain controls the brain. What was I saying, Watson? My directions for Mr. Culverton Smith. Ah, yes.


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[Assistant] I remember. My life depends upon it. Plead with him, Watson. There is no good feeling between us. His nephew, Watson. I had suspicions of foul play, and I allowed him to see it.


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[Assistant] The boy died horribly. He has a grudge against me. You will soften him, Watson. Beg him, pray him, get him here by any means. He can save me, only he. I will bring him in a cab if I have to carry him down to it. You will do nothing of the sort.


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[Assistant] You will persuade him to come, and then you will return in front of him


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[Assistant] Make any excuse so as not to come with him. Don't forget, Watson, you won't fail me. You never did fail me. No doubt. There are natural enemies which limit the increase of the creatures you and I. Watson, we have done our part.


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[Assistant] Shall the world then be overrun by oysters? No, no, horrible. You'll convey all that is in your mind.


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[Assistant] I left him full of the image of this magnificent intellect, babbling like a foolish child


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[Assistant] He had handed me the key, and with a happy thought I took it with me lest he should lock himself in. Mrs. Hudson was waiting, trembling and weeping in the passage. Behind me, as I passed from the flat, I heard Holmes's high, thin voice in some delirious chant.


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[Assistant] It was an old acquaintance, Inspector Morton of Scotland Yard, dressed in unofficial tweeds. He's very ill, I answered. He looked at me in a most singular fashion.


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[Assistant] Had it not been too fiendish, I could have imagined that the gleam of the fan-light showed exultation in his face. I heard some rumour of it, said he. The cab had driven up, and I left him.


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[Assistant] Lower Burke Street proved to be a line of fine houses lying in the vague borderland between Notting Hill and Kensington. The particular one at which my cabman pulled up


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[Assistant] Had an air of smug and demure respectability in its old-fashioned iron railings, its massive folding door, and its shining brasswork.


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[Assistant] All was in keeping with a solemn butler, who appeared framed in the pink radiance of a tinted electrical light behind him.


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[Assistant] Yes, Mr. Culverton Smith is in, Dr. Watson. Very good, sir. I'll take up your card.


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[Assistant] My humble name and title did not appear to impress Mr. Culverton Smith. Through the half-open door I heard a high, petulant, penetrating voice. Who is this person? What does he want?


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[Assistant] Dear me staples, how often have I said that I am not to be disturbed in my hours of study?


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[Assistant] There came a gentle flow of soothing explanations from the butler


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[Assistant] Well, I won't see him, Staples. I can't have my work interrupted like this. I am not at home. Say so. Tell him to come in the morning, if he really must see me." Again the gentle murmur.


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[Assistant] He can come in the morning or he can stay away. My work must not be hindered.


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[Assistant] I thought of Holmes tossing upon his bed of sickness and counting the minutes, perhaps until I could bring help to him. It was not a time to stand upon ceremony. His life depended upon my promptness. Before the apologetic butler had delivered his message, I had pushed past him and was in the room.


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[Assistant] With a shrill cry of anger, a man rose from a reclining chair beside the fire.


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[Assistant] I saw a great yellow face, coarse-grained and greasy, with heavy double chin and two sullen menacing gray eyes, which glared at me from under tufted and sandy brows. A high bald head had a small velvet smoking cap, poised croquettishly upon one side of its pink curve.


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[Assistant] The skull was of enormous capacity.


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[Assistant] And yet as I looked down, I saw to my amazement that the figure of the man was small and frail, twisted in the shoulders and back like one who has suffered from rickets in his childhood.


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[Assistant] What's this?" he cried in a high screaming voice. What is the meaning of this intrusion? Didn't I send you word that I would see you to-morrow morning? I am sorry, said I.


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[Assistant] But the matter cannot be delayed.


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[Assistant] The mention of my friend's name had an extraordinary effect upon the little man.


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[Assistant] The look of anger passed in an instant from his face. His features became tense and alert. Have you come from Mr. Holmes? He asked. I've just left him. What about Holmes? How is he? He is desperately ill. That's why I've come.


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[Assistant] The man motioned me to a chair and turned to resume his own.


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[Assistant] As he did so, I caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror over the mantelpiece.


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[Assistant] I could have sworn that it was set in a malicious and abominable smile.


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[Assistant] Yet I persuaded myself that it must have been some nervous contraction which I had


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[Assistant] For he turned to me an instant later, with genuine concern upon his features.


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[Assistant] I am sorry to hear this," said he. I only know Mr. Holmes through some business dealings which we have had.


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[Assistant] He continued, pointing to a row of bottles and jars which stood upon a side table.


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[Assistant] Among those gelatin cultivations, some of the very worst offenders in the world are now doing time.


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[Assistant] It was on account of your special knowledge that Mr. Holmes desired to see you. He has a high opinion of you and thought that you were the one man in London who could help him.


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[Assistant] The little man started, and the jaunty smoking-cap slid to the floor. Why? he asked. Why should Mr. Holmes think that? I could help him. In his trouble. Because of your knowledge of Eastern diseases.


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[Assistant] Why should he think that this disease which he has contracted is Eastern?


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[Assistant] Because in some professional inquiry he's been working among Chinese sailors down in the docks.


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[Assistant] Mr Culverton Smith smiled pleasantly and picked up his smoking-cap. Oh, that's it, is it? said he. I trust the matter is not so grave as you suppose. How long has he been ill? About three days. Is he delirious? Occasionally.


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[Assistant] Tut, tut, this sounds serious. It would be inhuman not to answer his call.


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[Assistant] I very much resent any interruption to my work, Dr Watson, but this case is certainly exceptional. I will come with you at once." I remembered Holmes's injunction.


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[Assistant] I have a note of Mr. Holmes's address. You can rely upon my being there within half an hour at most.


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[Assistant] It was with a sinking heart that I reentered Holmes's bedroom


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[Assistant] For all that I knew, the worst might have happened in my absence.


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[Assistant] To my enormous relief, he had improved greatly in the interval. His appearance was as ghastly as ever, but all trace of delirium had left him, and he spoke in a feeble voice, it is true, but with even more than his usual crispness and lucidity. Well, did you see him, Watson? Yes, he is coming. Admirable, Watson, admirable, you are the best of messengers. He wished to return with me.


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[Assistant] That would never do, Watson. That would be obviously impossible. Did he ask what ailed me? I told him about the Chinese in the East End. Exactly.


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[Assistant] Well, Watson, you've done all that a good friend could. You can now disappear from the scene. I must wait and hear his opinion, Holmes.


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[Assistant] Of course you must, but I have reasons to suppose that this opinion would be very much more frank and valuable if he imagines that we are alone. There is just room behind the head of my bed, Watson. My dear Holmes, I fear there is no alternative, Watson.


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[Assistant] The room does not lend itself to concealment, which is as well as it is the less likely to arouse suspicion, but just there, Watson, I fancy that it could be done.


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[Assistant] Suddenly he sat up with a rigid intentness upon his haggard face. There are the wheels, Watson. Quick, man, if you love me. And don't budge. Whatever happens, whatever happens, do you hear? Don't speak.


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[Assistant] Don't move. Just listen with all your ears.


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[Assistant] Then in an instant his sudden access of strength departed, and his masterful, purposeful talk droned away into the low, vague murmurings of a semi-delirious man.


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[Assistant] From the hiding place into which I had been so swiftly hustled I heard the footfalls upon the stair, with the opening and the closing of the bedroom door.


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[Assistant] To my surprise, there came a long silence broken only by the heavy breathings and gaspings of the sick man.


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[Assistant] I could imagine that our visitor was standing by the bedside and looking down at the sufferer.


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[Assistant] There was a rustling as if I had shaken the sick man roughly by the shoulder.


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[Assistant] Is that you, Mr. Smith?" Holmes whispered. I hardly dared hope that you would come. The other laughed. I should imagine not, he said. And yet, you see, I am here.


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[Assistant] Coles of fire, homes! Coles of fire! It is very good of you, very noble of you. I appreciate your special knowledge.


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[Assistant] Our visitor sniggered, You do! You are, fortunately, the only man in London who does. Do you know what is the matter with you? The same, said Holmes. Ah, you recognise the symptoms? Only too well.


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[Assistant] Well, I shouldn't be surprised, Holmes. I shouldn't be surprised if it were the same.


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[Assistant] Bad look out for you, it is. Poor Victor was a dead man on the fourth day. A strong, hearty young fellow. It was certainly, as you said, very surprising that he should have contracted an out-of-the-way Asiatic disease in the heart of London.


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[Assistant] A disease too of which I had made such a very special study. Singular coincidence, Holmes. Very smart of you to notice it.


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[Assistant] But rather uncharitable to suggest that it was cause and effect. I knew that you did it.


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[Assistant] Oh, you did, did you? Well, you couldn't prove it anyhow.


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[Assistant] But what do you think of yourself, spreading reports about me like that, and then crawling to me for help the moment you're in trouble? What sort of a game is that, eh?


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[Assistant] You're precious near your end, my friend, but I don't want you to go till I have had a word with you. That's why I give you water. There, don't slup it about. That's right. Can you understand what I say?" Holmes groaned. "'Do what you can for me. Let bygones be bygones,' he whispered. "'I'll put the words out of my head. I swear I will. Only cure me, and I'll forget it.'" "'Forget what?'


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[Assistant] Well, about Victor Savage's death. You as good as admitted just now that you had done it. I'll forget it.