HONORABLE RESOURCES OF AN EXILE.
Now that the count thought himself secure of the means of payment, he sent for a physician, to consult him respecting the state of the general. When Dr. Cavendish saw and conversed with the venerable Butzou, he gave it as his opinion that his malady was chiefly on the nerves, and had originated in grief.
"I can too well suppose it," replied Thaddeus.
"Then," rejoined the physician, "I fear, sir, that unless I know something of its cause, my visits will prove almost useless."
The count was silent. The doctor resumed—
"I shall be grieved if his sorrows be of too delicate a nature to be trusted with a man of honor; for in these cases, unless we have some knowledge of the springs of the derangement, we lose time, and perhaps entirely fail of a cure. Our discipline is addressed both to the body and the mind of the patient."
Thaddeus perceived the necessity of compliance, and did so without further hesitation.
"The calamities, sir, which have occasioned the disorder of my friend need not be a secret: too many have shared them with him; his sorrows have been public ones. You must have learnt by his language, Dr. Cavendish, that he is a foreigner and a soldier. He held the rank of general in the King of Poland's service. Since the period in which his country fell, his wandering senses have approximated to what you see."
Dr. Cavendish paused for a moment before he answered the count; then fixing his eyes on the veteran, who was sitting at the other end of the room, constructing the model of a fortified town, he said—
"All that we can do at present, sir, is to permit him to follow his schemes without contradiction, meanwhile strengthening his system with proper medicines, and lulling its irritation by gentle opiates. We must proceed cautiously, and I trust in Heaven that success will crown us at last. I will order something to be taken every night."