‘Oh! you’ll know soon, sir,’ said I.
The next time that I expected the doctor to come, instead of receiving him in a darkened room, with handkerchiefs muffled, I took care to be in the lower room, and was having a game at cards with Lischen as the surgeon entered. I had taken possession of a dressing-jacket of the lieutenant’s, and some other articles of his wardrobe, which fitted me pretty well; and, I flatter myself, was no ungentlemanlike figure.
‘Good-morrow, Corporal,’ said the doctor, rather gruffly, in reply to my smiling salute.
‘Corporal! Lieutenant, if you please,’ answered I, giving an arch look at Lischen, whom I had instructed in my plot.
‘How lieutenant?’ asked the surgeon. ‘I thought the lieutenant was’—
‘Upon my word, you do me great honour,’ cried I, laughing; ‘you mistook me for the mad corporal upstairs. The fellow has once or twice pretended to be an officer, but my kind hostess here can answer which is which.’
‘Yesterday he fancied he was Prince Ferdinand,’ said Lischen; ‘the day you came he said he was an Egyptian mummy.’
‘So he did,’ said the doctor; ‘I remember; but, ha! ha! do you know, Lieutenant, I have in my notes made a mistake in you two?’
‘Don’t talk to me about his malady; he is calm now.’
Lischen and I laughed at this error as at the most ridiculous thing in the world; and when the surgeon went up to examine his patient, I cautioned him not to talk to him about the subject of his malady, for he was in a very excited state.