In the three or four weeks which followed, the General gathered a surfeit of adulation, notwithstanding which he was constantly and with pain imagining a confused chatter of ladies, and when he shut his eyes with annoyance, there was Madame Delicieuse standing, and saying, “I knew not a reason why you should be angry against your son,” gazing in his face with hardened simplicity, and then—­that last scene on the stairs wherein he seemed still to be descending, down, down.

Madame herself was keeping good her resolution.

“Now or never,” she said, “a reconciliation or a quarrel.”

When the General, to keep up appearances, called again, she so moved him with an account of certain kindly speeches of her own invention, which she imputed to Dr. Mossy, that he promised to call and see his son; “perhaps;” “pretty soon;” “probably.”

Dr. Mossy, sitting one February morning among his specimens and books of reference, finishing a thrilling chapter on the cuticle, too absorbed to hear a door open, suddenly realized that something was in his light, and, looking up, beheld General Villivicencio standing over him.  Breathing a pleased sigh, he put down his pen, and, rising on tiptoe, laid his hand upon his father’s shoulder, and lifting his lips like a little wife, kissed him.

“Be seated, papa,” he said, offering his own chair, and perching on the desk.

The General took it, and, clearing his throat, gazed around upon the jars and jars with their little Adams and Eves in zooelogical gardens.

“Is all going well, papa?” finally asked Dr. Mossy.

“Yes.”

Then there was a long pause.

“’Tis a beautiful day,” said the son.

“Very beautiful,” rejoined the father.

“I thought there would have been a rain, but it has cleared off,” said the son.

“Yes,” responded the father, and drummed on the desk.

“Does it appear to be turning cool?” asked the son.

“No; it does not appear to be turning cool at all,” was the answer.

“H’m ’m!” said Dr. Mossy.

“Hem!” said General Villivicencio.

Dr. Mossy, not realizing his own action, stole a glance at his manuscript.

“I am interrupting you,” said the General, quickly, and rose.

“No, no! pardon me; be seated; it gives me great pleasure to—­I did not know what I was doing.  It is the work with which I fill my leisure moments.”

So the General settled down again, and father and son sat very close to each other—­in a bodily sense; spiritually they were many miles apart.  The General’s finger-ends, softly tapping the desk, had the sound of far-away drums.

“The city—­it is healthy?” asked the General.

“Did you ask me if”—­said the little Doctor, starting and looking up.

“The city—­it has not much sickness at present?” repeated the father.

“No, yes—­not much,” said Mossy, and, with utter unconsciousness, leaned down upon his elbow and supplied an omitted word to the manuscript.