"My good sir," said his attendant, "pray calm yourself, and take this pill" ...
"Yes, that dear friend, he will set me all to rights—he will bring to my heavy eyelids those peaceful slumbers which now, alas! I never enjoy."
"But, Sir," repeated the apothecary, "pray be so good as to lay down and swallow this."
"Back, felon of hell! horse-leech, son of a poultice! go, doctor of the devil, and join your friend in black below."
"But Monsieur le Banquier"——
"Off I say, off!—sinister raven, cease your croaking! Silence—take the abominable drugs yourself—poison yourself, you wretch. Give me my trousers, and let me dress myself. Hey, Bilboquet!—bring my hot water, razors, and shaving soap. Hurrah! Phœbus, light the sun and put out the stars; arise day! Into the saddle, postillions,—here, bring some cigars. Hurrah! the wind is up; now, my stout boatmen, down to your oars." "Halloo! halloo!" shouted his attendant, "help! help!" and he got at both bells and rang away with might and main; but before any one came the banker was out of bed, struck his attendant a blow in the eye, which made him see one hundred and forty-six suns, and laid him upon the floor, after which he commenced waltzing en chemise in his delirium, all round the room with a chair, dragging after him the unfortunate hero of the pestle and mortar, and roaring at the top of his voice these lines of Racine:
Peut-être on t'a conté la fameuse disgrâce
De l'altière Vasthi dont j'occupe la place,
Lorsque le Roi, centre elle enflammé de dépit,—
followed by—
Quel profâne en ces lieux ose porter ses pas?
Holà, gardes!—
At this moment a reinforcement most luckily arrived; but as in this access of fever he defended himself against all comers like a bear, and boxed away like an Englishman, they had no little difficulty in securing him; at length, in spite of his violence, he was replaced in his bed, like a sword into its sheath. There, however, he would not lay quiet; first he tore the satin curtains, then he hugged his richly-worked pillow to his breast, calling it his best and dearest friend, and performed fifty other such antics. He obtained, in short, no repose, until his secretary, who entered at his bidding half-dressed and with one eye half shut, had written the following note to my father, under his dictation,—a letter evidently written in a paroxysm of high fever: