The sergeant was standing just where I had left him; and to judge from the confounded look of his honest face, had not been able to comprehend what it all meant. I pulled off the broad-brimmed hat, made him a low bow with a scrape of the right foot, and said: "Have the honor to place myself again under your worshipful charge."
"After that, one can take a toothpick for a barn door!" exclaimed the old man, who began now to get a glimmering of the real state of the case. "That codfish of a smoke-dried flounder! Isn't it enough to turn a body into a bear with seven senses?"
"Hush!" I cried, "I hear the doctor coming. Not a word, my good Süssmilch!" and I pushed the old man out of the door, by which Doctor Snellius entered in his usual hasty fashion, with his hat in his hand. He started when he saw me, gave a glance round the room, looked at me again, and went out without saying a word.
I pulled off my sailor-dress in a moment, thrust it under the bed, and called after him in my natural voice:
"Why do you go away, doctor?"
He turned back instantly, came into the room, sat down upon a chair in front of me, and stared steadily at me through his round spectacles. I fancied he looked paler; and feared that perhaps I had carried the jest too far, and offended my irascible friend.
"Doctor----" I began.
"Something very singular has just happened to me," he interrupted me, always with the same fixed look.
"What is the matter, doctor?" I inquired, startled at his looks and the unaccustomed gentleness of his tone.
"Nothing at this moment; but I have just been the subject of a most remarkable hallucination."