The next day, which was the second occasion on which I had visited her, she told me that she had enjoyed the play though she could not understand the dialogues; and the day after she astonished me by saying that my brother had intruded himself into her box, and had said so many impertinent things that if she had been at Venice she would have boxed his ears.
“I am afraid,” she added, “that the rascal has followed me here, and will be annoying me.”
“Don’t be afraid,” I answered, “I will see what I can do.”
When I got to the hotel I entered the abbe’s room, and by Possano’s bed I saw an individual collecting lint and various surgical instruments.
“What’s all this? Are you ill?”
“Yes, I have got something which will teach me to be wiser for the future.”
“It’s rather late for this kind of thing at sixty.”
“Better late than never.”
“You are an old fool. You stink of mercury.”
“I shall not leave my room.”