“Give us plenty of light, Frowenfeld,” said the doctor, “and a chair and some lint, and some Castile soap, and some towels and sticking-plaster, and anything else you can think of.  Agricola’s about scared to death—­”

“Professor Frowenfeld,” groaned the aged citizen, “I am basely and mortally stabbed!”

“Right on, Frowenfeld,” continued the doctor, “right on into the back room.  Fasten that front door.  Here, Agricola, sit down here.  That’s right, Frow., stir up a little fire.  Give me—­never mind, I’ll just cut the cloth open.”

There was a moment of silent suspense while the wound was being reached, and then the doctor spoke again.

“Just as I thought; only a safe and comfortable gash that will keep you in-doors a while with your arm in a sling.  You are more scared than hurt, I think, old gentleman.”

“You think an infernal falsehood, sir!”

“See here, sir,” said the doctor, without ceasing to ply his dexterous hands in his art, “I’ll jab these scissors into your back if you say that again.”

“I suppose,” growled the “citizen,” “it is just the thing your professional researches have qualified you for, sir!”

“Just stand here, Mr. Frowenfeld,” said the little doctor, settling down to a professional tone, “and hand me things as I ask for them.  Honore, please hold this arm; so.”  And so, after a moderate lapse of time, the treatment that medical science of those days dictated was applied—­whatever that was.  Let those who do not know give thanks.

M. Grandissime explained to Frowenfeld what had occurred.

“You see, I succeeded in meeting my uncle, and we went together to my office.  My uncle keeps his accounts with me.  Sometimes we look them over.  We stayed until midnight; I dismissed my carriage.  As we walked homeward we met some friends coming out of the rooms of the Bagatelle Club; five or six of my uncles and cousins, and also Doctor Keene.  We all fell a-talking of my grandfather’s fete de grandpere of next month, and went to have some coffee.  When we separated, and my uncle and my cousin Achille Grandissime and Doctor Keene and myself came down Royal street, out from that dark alley behind your shop jumped a little man and stuck my uncle with a knife.  If I had not caught his arm he would have killed my uncle.”

“And he escaped,” said the apothecary.

“No, sir!” said Agricola, with his back turned.

“I think he did.  I do not think he was struck.”

“And Mr. ——­, your cousin?”

“Achille?  I have sent him for a carriage.”

“Why, Agricola,” said the doctor, snipping the loose ravellings from his patient’s bandages, “an old man like you should not have enemies.”

“I am not an old man, sir!”

“I said young man.”

“I am not a young man, sir!”

“I wonder who the fellow was,” continued Doctor Keene, as he readjusted the ripped sleeve.