"A little medicine, but good," answered Ruggiero, looking critically along the shelves, as though to select a remedy. "A little of the best," he added, jingling a few silver coins in his pockets and wondering how much the stuff would cost.
"But what kind of medicine?" asked the old man. "Do you feel ill?
Where?"
"Here," answered Ruggiero bringing his heavy bony hand down upon his huge chest with a noise that made the chemist start, and then chuckle.
"Just there, eh?" said the latter ironically. "You have the health of a horse. Go to dinner."
"I tell you it is there," returned Ruggiero. "Sometimes it is quite quiet, as it is now, but sometimes it jumps and threshes like a dolphin at sea."
"H'm! The heart, eh?" The old man came round his counter and applied his ear to Ruggiero's breast. "Regular as a steam engine," he said. "When does it jump, as you call it? When you go up hill?"
Ruggiero laughed.
"Am I old or fat?" he inquired contemptuously. "It happened first this morning. I was waiting in the hotel and a lady came by and spoke to me—about a certain boat."
"A lady? H'm! Young perhaps, and pretty?"
"That is my business. Then half an hour later I was talking to the Son of the Fool. You know him I daresay. And it began to jump again, and I said to myself, '"Health is the first thing," as the old people say.' So I came for the medicine."