“Thank you,” said Hamilton, rather puzzled by this address, and half-disposed to refuse the chair placed for him by the servant.
“You have been to Graefenberg?—No?”
“No.”
“You have recover without Preissnitz?”
“Recover!” repeated Hamilton; “I have never been seriously ill in my life, colds and all that sort of thing excepted—mere trifles, after all!”
“Trifles! well, you Englishmen have odd idea!—Rheumatism is trifle!”
“Gout is more common with us,” observed Hamilton, somewhat amused.
“Well, gout, chicagra, podagra, rheumatism, what you will, is no trifle at all! You have had the gout?”
“No; but I suppose I shall in time: it is hereditary in our family—my father has two or three attacks every year.”
“Your father! is it your father who has had the gout?”