The three pairs of eyebrows which were so horribly fixed on Ursus contracted. The three wise faces drew near to each other, and whispered. Ursus had the vision of a vague fool's cap sketched out above those three empowered heads. The low and requisite whispering of the trio was of some minutes' duration, during which time Ursus felt all the ice and all the scorch of agony. At length Minos, who was president, turned to him and said angrily,—
"Go away!"
Ursus felt something like Jonas when he was leaving the belly of the whale.
Minos continued,—
"You are discharged."
Ursus said to himself,—
"They won't catch me at this again. Good-bye, medicine!"
And he added in his innermost heart,—
"From henceforth I will carefully allow them to die."
Bent double, he bowed everywhere; to the doctors, to the busts, the tables, the walls, and retiring backwards through the door, disappeared almost as a shadow melting into air.