"Or if you like," suggested Hogg, "I'll tell everybody that I'm really cured and that that sonnet was only a kind of leftover from the old days. Or that that bloke K isn't really me but somebody else. In any case, that Shorthouse man won't say anything to anybody, will he? I mean, you doctors stick together, you have to, don't you? In one of those papers of yours I could do it," expanded Hogg. "The Lancet and The Scalpel and all those things."

Dr Wapenshaw tore at the skull with his tense strong-nailed hairy fingers, but the skull, as though, it shot into Hogg's mind, remembering Housman's line about the man of bone remaining, grinned in armoured complacency. Dr Wapenshaw seemed about to weep then, as though this skull were Yorick's. After that, he made as to hurl the skull at Hogg, but Hogg got down to the floor to pick up the copy of The Kvadrat's Kloochy. Dr Wapenshaw put the skull back on its table, took a great breath and cried:

"Get out! Get out of my bloody consulting-room!"

"I," said Hogg, still on his knees, mildly, "only came here because you told me to."

"Go on, get out! I expended skill and time and patience and, yes, bloody love on your case, and this is the thanks I get! You want to ruin my bloody career, that's what it is!"

Hogg, who had forgotten that he was still kneeling, said with continued mildness: "You could always put what they call an erratum slip in the book, you know. I had one once. The printers had printed "immortal" instead of "immoral." It'll be a great pleasure to help you, really and truly. In any case, if the worst comes to the worst, they can always take that whole section out of the book and you can put something else in. Although," he added seriously, "you'll have to make sure it's exactly the same length. You could sit down tonight and make something up."

Dr Wapenshaw now stomped over to kneeling Hogg and began to lift him by his collar.