He walked rapidly up the steep paved ascent which leads through the narrow gorge from the small beach to the town above. A few minutes later he entered the chemist’s shop for the first time in his life in search of medicine for himself. He took off his cap and looked about him with some curiosity, eying the long rows of old-fashioned majolica drug jars, and the stock of bottles of all colours and labels in the glass cases. The chemist was a worthy old creature with a white beard and solemn ways.
“What do you want?” he inquired.
“A little medicine, but good,” answered Ruggiero, looking critically along the shelves, as though to select a remedy. “A little of the best,” he added, jingling a few silver coins in his pockets and wondering how much the stuff would cost.
“But what kind of medicine?” asked the old man. “Do you feel ill? Where?”
“Here,” answered Ruggiero bringing his heavy bony hand down upon his huge chest with a noise that made the chemist start, and then chuckle.
“Just there, eh?” said the latter ironically. “You have the health of a horse. Go to dinner.”
“I tell you it is there,” returned Ruggiero. “Sometimes it is quite quiet, as it is now, but sometimes it jumps and threshes like a dolphin at sea.”
“H’m! The heart, eh?” The old man came round his counter and applied his ear to Ruggiero’s breast. “Regular as a steam engine,” he said. “When does it jump, as you call it? When you go up hill?”
Ruggiero laughed.
“Am I old or fat?” he inquired contemptuously. “It happened first this morning. I was waiting in the hotel and a lady came by and spoke to me—about a certain boat.”
“A lady? H’m! Young perhaps, and pretty?”
“That is my business. Then half an hour later I was talking to the Son of the Fool. You know him I daresay. And it began to jump again, and I said to myself, ‘"Health is the first thing,” as the old people say.’ So I came for the medicine.”
The chemist chuckled audibly.
“And what were you talking about?” he asked. “The lady?”
“It is true,” answered Ruggiero in a tone of reflection. “The Son of the Fool was telling me that the lady is to marry my signore.”
“And you want medicine!” cried the old man, laughing aloud. “Imbecile! Have you never been in love?”
Ruggiero stared at him.
“Eh! A girl here and there—in Buenos Ayres, in New Orleans—what has that to do with it? You—what the malora—the plague—are you talking about? Eh? Explain a little.”
“You had better go back to Buenos Ayres, or to some other place where you will not see the lady any more,” said the chemist. “You are in love with her. That is all the matter.”
“I, with a gran’ signora, a great lady! You are crazy, Don Ciccio!”
“Crazy or not—tell me to-morrow whether your heart does not beat every time she looks at you. As for her being a great lady—we are men, and they are women.”