“The boy only wants bleeding,” said Gilbert’s friend.
“Ho, ho, so it is you, my lord, again?” sneered the surgeon, perceiving Taverney.
The old gentleman thought that the speech was addressed to him and he took it up warmly.
“I am not a lord—I am a man of the multitude—I am Jean Jacques Rousseau.”
The surgeon uttered an exclamation of surprise and said as he waved the crowd back imperiously:
“Way for the Man of Nature—the Emancipator of Humanity—the Citizen of Geneva! Has any harm befallen you?”
“No, but to this poor lad.”
“Ah, like me, you represent the cause of mankind,” said the surgeon.
Startled by this unexpected eulogy, the author of the “Social contract” could only stammer some unintelligible words, while Philip Taverney, seized with stupefaction at being in face of the famous philosopher, stepped aside.
Rousseau was helped in placing Gilbert on the table.