“When honeysuckles close their petals to hummingbirds, Venus will shut the door on Adonis,” responded the judge, draining his glass and smiling into its depths.

The quack was too far gone in his cups to comprehend or even to be curious as to the significance of this sneer and went on sounding his own virtues and Pepeeta’s beauty while the judge provoked him to the fullest exhibition of his colossal vanity.  He took a sinister delight in drawing him out.  It was the pleasure of a cat playing with the mouse, which it is about to devour, or of savages mocking the man who is about to run the gauntlet.  He exulted in the contrast of this proud man’s present confidence, and the humiliation which awaited him within the next few hours.

The quack was an easy victim.  His career of prosperity had met with but a single serious interruption and he had so entirely forgotten his dangerous sickness in his perfect health that he was seldom troubled by foreboding as to the future.  Never had he possessed more confidence of life than at the very moment when all his hopes, all his confidence, all his faith, were about to be shattered.

Our misfortunes draw a train of shadows behind them; but they often project a glowing light before them.  Sickness is often preceded by the most bounding health, failure by unexampled success, misery by irrepressible emotions of exultation.  Too bright a sunshine as well as too dark a shadow is often the herald of a storm upon the sea of life.

But ebullitions of happiness and confidence did not excite the apprehension of the quack.  Each bumper of wine was followed by a new outburst of vanity.  The captain and the mate had already succumbed to the potent influence of the liquors which they had been drinking, and amidst his maudlin speeches the quack’s tongue was becoming hopelessly tangled.

The judge was as sober as at the beginning of the feast and with a smile upon his lips in which cynicism was incarnate, waited until the doctor had just begun to snore and then aroused him by another question.

“Who is this paragon of virtue to whom you so confidently trust the chastity of your wife?”

“This w-w-what?”

“This paragon of virtue—­this ice-cold Adonis?”

“Say whatcher mean.”

“Who is this pure young man with whom the beautiful Pepeeta is so safe?  What is it you call him, David Crocker?”

“’Tain’t his real name.”

“What is his real name?”

“D’n I ever t-t-tell you?”

“No.”

“Real name’s C-C-Corson—­David Corson.”

“What?” cried the judge, springing to his feet.

“C-C-Corson—­I tell you,” stuttered the quack, too drunk to notice the peculiar effect of his announcement.

“What do you know about him?” the judge asked with ill-suppressed excitement.

“Keep still—­wan’ go sleep.”

“Wake up and tell me what you know about him, I say.”