This pinning-down vexed the tailor-bird most of all, and he replied, trying to get up, that "he would this very day, if he were consulted, advise his Highness to adhere to his present better choice." The barrack-physician might perhaps have too hurriedly withdrawn his hand from the shoulder which it covered; for he grazed with it, as with a cannon, the nose of his adversary, whereupon the latter, like Saint Januarius, discharged some blood. The Evangelist was personally grieved "that two such sensible men could not fall out and fight with each other without personal hatred and heat, since they might, like princes who go to war, attack each other without either,—but the bleeding too well attested Zeusel's ebullition." ... Zeusel cried out to the Doctor, "You lout!" The latter, in his fury, actually took Matthieu's opinion, that the former bled only from fury, and compared him to those corpses which in old times bled, indeed, at the approach of the murderer, but from none other than quite natural causes. The Medicus, therefore, looked for his cane, which like a prince was gold-headed, and took his leave with the crowned stick, drawing it a few times, as with magnetic passes, across Zeusel's fingers; but I would call the staff, if I were in the place of other people, neither an ear-trumpet for Zeusel, which the physician applied to him, as they often do to persons hard of hearing, that the latter might hear better, nor yet a door-knocker, which he stretched out before the truth, that it might the more easily get admission into the apothecary. What he wanted was merely to oblige him to let his handkerchief drop, in order that he might look him in the face as he bade farewell, which he clothed in the following forbearing and neatly turned remark: "You tell your Doctor that he and you there are the two greatest blockheads in town."

Under these last words both dispensers kept themselves still enough in other respects, though not with their tongues, indeed; for the tall dispenser saluted, as second chorus, the short one with the same war-song, and was a genuine Anti-Podagrist. Whoso considers that the tall one loved my hero on account of his politeness, and could not bear the short one, because Culpepper sent all his prescriptions to his shop,—such a one cannot expect anything less of the couple than a reflection of the scene in the billiard-room; but the tall dispenser was composed, and never, like Portugal, propagated edifying truths with blood, but—the moment the barrack-doctor called the court-physician a blockhead—he quietly took the hat of the short dispenser, who had deposited his income of eggs therein to guard them from being broken, and coolly, without the least resentment, placed the aforesaid hatful of eggs on the head of the professional brother; and by a slight squeeze fitted the Doctor's hat, which sat half an ell too high, upon the head of his friend,—with all the more propriety, as Castor and Pollux also had on egg-shells,[[206]]—and having effected this promotion, he went his way, without exactly caring to have much thanks for the felt-stuffing and the streaming face-poultice.

Fisticuffs spread abroad lesser truths, as wars do great truths. The Court-Chaplain Eymann sent a long letter of congratulation to Victor, and called him "January's kidney-keeper," and begged for his promised visit. A travelling[[207]]-advocate knocked at his door as at that of a superior court, and begged him for a princely injunction against the Regency-College. The apothecary, with his application about the lavement,[[208]] still holds back.

Victor still laid up for himself his first visit to St. Luna like a ripening fruit, and thereby vexed the Regency-Counsellor, who wanted to persuade him into it. But he said: "Those who are left behind in a place long indescribably for him who has gone from it, until he has made his first visit; and so, too, with him. After the first, both parties wait quite coolly and composedly for the second."—What he neither said nor thought, but felt and feared, was this: that his demigoddess, Clotilda, who inhabited the most holy place in his breast, and who by her invisibleness had become dearer, more indispensable, and for that very reason more sure to his soul, would, perhaps, at her appearance, take away at once all hopes out of his heart.

It was on the evening of the day when he received Eymann's letter, that he thus fantasied: "Ah, if January would only continue so well! He must have exercise, but of an unusual kind,—the rider must walk, the pedestrian must drive. We ought to travel together on foot through the country, in disguise. Ah, I might, perhaps, be of service to many a poor devil! We would steal homeward through St. Luna,—No, no, no!" ...

He started back himself, affrighted at a certain idea,—for he feared he should, when he had once had it, even execute it; hence he said to it three times, No. The idea was this,—to persuade the Prince to visit Clotilda's parents. But it was of no use; he remembered that his father had held too strict a court of cognizance over the Chamberlain and the Minister. "And yet, what harm can Le Baut do to me? If I should only draw three sun-glances from January upon the poor fool! The wisest thing for me is, not to think any more about it to-day."

The dog will bring us the answer; I, for my part, make a bet—a fine connoisseur of human nature on my island bets the contrary—that he does not carry out this joke.

[18. DOG-POST-DAY.]

Clotilda's Promotion.—Incognito-Journey.—Petition of the Majors of the Chase.—Consistorial Messenger.—Caricature of the Flachsenfingeners.