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t you see what you've done? Aside from selling your colleagues down the river, that is?" He clenched the reprint of Coffin's address in his hand and brandished it like a broadsword. "'Report on a Vaccine for the Treatment and Cure of the Common Cold,' by C. P. Coffin, et al. That's what it says--et al. My idea in the first place. Jake and I both pounding our heads on the wall for eight solid months--and now you sneak it into publication a full year before we have any business publishing a word about it."
"Really, Phillip!" Dr. Chauncey Coffin ran a pudgy hand through his snowy hair. "How ungrateful! I thought for sure you'd be delighted. An excellent presentation, I must say--terse, succinct, unequivocal--" he raised his hand--"but generously unequivocal, you understand. You should have heard the ovation--they nearly went wild! And the look on Underwood's face! Worth waiting twenty years for."
"And the reporters," snapped Phillip. "Don't forget the reporters." He whirled on the small dark man sitting quietly in the corner. "How about that, Jake? Did you see the morning papers? This thief not only steals our work, he splashes it all over the countryside in red ink."
Dr. Jacob Miles coughed apologetically. "What Phillip is so stormed up about is the prematurity of it all," he said to Coffin. "After all, we've hardly had an acceptable period of clinical trial."
"Nonsense," said Coffin, glaring at Phillip. "Underwood and his men were ready to publish their discovery within another six weeks. Where would we be then? How much clinical testing do you want? Phillip, you had the worst cold of your life when you took the vaccine. Have you had any since?"
"No, of course not," said Phillip peevishly.
"Jacob, how about you? Any sniffles?"
"Oh, no. No colds."
"Well, what about those six hundred students from the University? Did I misread the reports on them?"
"No--98 per cent cured of active symptoms within twenty-four hours. Not a single