"Just sorry, I guess...." He winced and was silent.

"Sorry for me?"

"Well, yes."

"That I'm not a layman?"

"You could put it that way."

"That's a very interesting statement, Father, and one about which I want to know a good deal more after I've asked you some other questions. You see, I think I know what's the matter with you, and it's definitely curable."

"It is not curable." His voice had a flat finality, and his lips drew into a thin firm line.

"Let me ask you the questions anyway, Father," I said. He gave no other sign, "Have you ever looked through a microscope?"

"At the little beasties? Yes, in college."

"Well, that's what I have just finished doing with a number of slivers of living tissue from your body. Do you know what I saw that would bring me up here?"

"I might," he answered warily.

"What do you think?"

"Cancer, maybe."

"No, cancer cells have their own pattern of behavior which is very pretty and, of course, no longer at all deadly. You do not have cancer; but the cells of your kidneys, for instance, are doing something I've never seen live kidney cells doing."

"And what is that?" he said, as if he really couldn't care less.

"Nothing in particular. This is unheard of indeed. Kidney cells are busy little widgets doing a tremendous job night and day. Like the individual muscle fibers of the heart, they work on year after year with no vacations, no coffee breaks, secure in the knowledge of their purpose."

"No pseudo-sermons, please, Father!" Father Phillip's voice was stern. "You don't have to Peter Rabbit up biology for me."

"A scholar indeed to have heard of Peter Rabbit," I laughed but he did not smile. 

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