"Is it to Monsieur Francis Thomas that I have the honor of speaking?" inquired the doctor.
"The same, sir. I should have begun by telling you my name."
"Then you must permit me to say, sir, that you have been guilty of no unseemly haste—"
But just then the good doctor's attention was diverted by M. Morlot, who was rubbing his hands in a frenzied manner.
"What is the matter with you, my friend?" the doctor asked in his kind, fatherly way.
"Nothing, nothing! I am only washing my hands. There is something on them that troubles me."
"Show me what it is. I don't see anything."
"Can't you see it? There, there, between my fingers. I see it plainly enough."
"What do you see?"
"My nephew's money. Take it away, doctor. I'm an honest man; I don't want anything that belongs to anybody else."