“You are not a physician, I suppose?” said the Jewish doctor, with a singular grimace which made his face appear more wicked than it really was.

“If the Baron de Nucingen sent word that he was ill and wanted you to visit him, would you reply, ’Let him come here to me’?”

“I should go to him,” said the Jew, coldly, spitting into a Dutch pot made of mahogany and full of sand.

“You would go,” said Godefroid, gently, “because the Baron de Nucingen has two millions a year, and—­”

“The rest has nothing to do with the matter; I should go.”

“Well, monsieur, you must go to the lady on the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse for the same reason.  Without possessing the fortune of the Baron du Nucingen, I am here to tell you that you may yourself put a price upon this lady’s cure, or upon your attendance if you fail; I am ready to pay it in advance.  But perhaps, monsieur, as you are a Polish refugee and, I believe, a communist, the lady’s parentage may induce you to make a sacrifice to Poland.  She is the granddaughter of Colonel Tarlowski, the friend of Poniatowski.”

“Monsieur, you came here to ask me to cure that lady, and not to give me advice.  In Poland I am a Pole; in Paris I am Parisian.  Every man does good in his own way; the greed with which I am credited is not without its motive.  The wealth I am amassing has its destination; it is a sacred one.  I sell health; the rich can afford to purchase it, and I make them pay.  The poor have their doctors.  If I had not a purpose in view I would not practise medicine.  I live soberly and I spend my time in rushing hither and thither; my natural inclination is to be lazy, and I used to be a gambler.  Draw your conclusions, young man.  You are too young still to judge old men.”

Godefroid was silent.

“From what you say,” went on the doctor, “the lady in question is the granddaughter of that imbecile who had no courage but that of fighting, and who took part in delivering over his country to Catherine II?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Well, be at her house Monday next at three o’clock,” said Halpersohn, taking out a note-book in which he wrote a few words.  “You will give me then two hundred francs; and if I promise to cure the patient you will give me three thousand.  I am told,” he added, “that the lady has shrunk to almost nothing.”

“Monsieur, if the most celebrated doctors in Paris are to be believed, it is a neurotic case of so extraordinary a nature that they denied the possibility of its symptoms until they saw them.”

“Ah! yes, I remember now what the young lad told me.  To-morrow, monsieur.”

Godefroid withdrew, after bowing to the man who seemed to him as odd as he was extraordinary.  Nothing about him indicated a physician, not even the study, in which the most notable object was the iron safe, made by Huret or Fichet.

Godefroid had just time to get to the passage Vivienne before the shops closed for the day, and there he bought a superb accordion, which he ordered sent at once to Monsieur Bernard, giving the address.