"But thus much is certain; if I be bled, I must pay you a fee, and be burnt and excruciated with a hot iron, who am no felon.
"Pay a certain price in money and anguish for a doubtful remedy, that will I never.
"Next to money and ease, peace and quiet are certain goods, above all in a sick-room; but 'twould seem men cannot argue medicine without heat and raised voices; therefore, sir, I will essay a little sleep, and Denys will go forth and gaze on the females of the place, and I will keep you no longer from those who can afford to lay out blood and money in flebotomy and cautery."The old physician had naturally a hot temper; he had often during this battle of words mastered it with difficulty, and now it mastered him.The most dignified course was silence; he saw this, and drew himself up, and made loftily for the door, followed close by his little boy and big basket.
But at the door he choked, he swelled, he burst.He whirled and came back open-mouthed, and the little boy and big basket had to whisk semicircularly not to be run down, for de minimis non curat Medicina-even when not in a rage.
"Ah! you reject my skill, you scorn my art.My revenge shall be to leave you to yourself; lost idiot, take your last look at me, and at the sun.Your blood be on your head!" And away he stamped.
But on reaching the door he whirled and came back; his wicker tail twirling round after him like a cat's.
"In twelve hours at furthest you will be in the secondary stage of fever.Your head will split.Your carotids will thump.Aha! And let but a pin fall, you will jump to the ceiling.Then send for me; and I'll not come." He departed.But at the door- handle gathered fury, wheeled and came flying, with pale, terror-stricken boy and wicker tail whisking after him."Next will come - CRAMPSof the STOMACH.Aha!
"Then - BILIOUS VOMIT.Aha!
"Then - COLD SWEAT, and DEADLY STUPOR.
"Then - CONFUSION OF ALL THE SENSES.
"Then - BLOODY VOMIT.
"And after that nothing can save you, not even I; and if I could Iwould not, and so farewell!"
Even Denys changed colour at threats so fervent and precise; but Gerard only gnashed his teeth with rage at the noise, and seized his hard bolster with kindling eye.
This added fuel to the fire, and brought the insulted ancient back from the impassable door, with his whisking train.
"And after that - MADNESS!
"And after that - BLACK VOMIT
"And then - CONVULSIONS!
"And then - THAT CESSATION OF ALL VITAL FUNCTIONS THE VULGAR CALL'DEATH,' for which thank your own Satanic folly and insolence.
Farewell." He went.He came.He roared, "And think not to be buried in any Christian church- yard; for the bailiff is my good friend, and I shall tell him how and why you died: felo de se!
felo de se! Farewell."
Gerard sprang to his feet on the bed by some supernatural gymnastic power excitement lent him, and seeing him so moved, the vindictive orator came back at him fiercer than ever, to launch some master-threat the world has unhappily lost; for as he came with his whisking train, and shaking his fist, Gerard hurled the bolster furiously in his face and knocked him down like a shot, the boy's head cracked under his falling master's, and crash went the dumb-stricken orator into the basket, and there sat wedged in an inverted angle, crushing phial after phial.The boy, being light, was strewed afar, but in a squatting posture; so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the smaller howling.
But soon the doctor's face filled with horror, and he uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled with wonderful agility for one of his age.
He was sitting on the hot coals.
They had singed the cloth and were now biting the man.Struggling wildly but vainly to get out of the basket, he rolled yelling over with it sideways, and lo! a great hissing; then the humane Gerard ran and wrenched off the tight basket not without a struggle.The doctor lay on his face groaning, handsomely singed with his own chafer, and slaked a moment too late by his own villainous compounds, which, however, being as various and even beautiful in colour as they were odious in taste, had strangely diversified his grey robe, and painted it more gaudy than neat.
Gerard and Denys raised him up and consoled him."Courage, man, 'tis but cautery; balm of Gilead, why, you recommend it but now to my comrade here."The physician replied only by a look of concentrated spite, and went out in dead silence, thrusting his stomach forth before him in the drollest way.The boy followed him next moment but in that slight interval he left off whining, burst into a grin, and conveyed to the culprits by an unrefined gesture his accurate comprehension of, and rapturous though compressed joy at, his master's disaster.