"Hello! Hello! Where are you bound for so early?"
"For Doas, man. I have not a minute to spare." And saying this the doctor alighted from his mule, which he tied to an iron ring fastened in the wall.
"Is the case so urgent?"
"Urgent? That it is. The old woman, the grandmother of Ramon, the confectioner. It appears she has already received the last sacrament."
"And it is only now they have sent for you?"
"No; I went to see her yesterday, and I applied two dozen leeches, that drew their fill of blood from her. She looked like a dying kid; she was very weak, and as thin as a wafer. Perhaps if I had given her something that I thought of, instead of applying leeches——"
"Ah! a trip," interrupted Agonde maliciously.
"Life is a series of trips," responded the doctor, shrugging his shoulders. "And upstairs?" he added, raising his eyes interrogatively to the ceiling.
"Snoring like princes."
"And he—how does he look?" asked Don Fermin, lowering his voice and dwelling on every word.