“And if the little comet which my old foster father discovered last week continues to increase,” added the physician, “so that its tail spreads over a portion of the sky, the panic will reach its highest pitch; I can see already that they will behave like mad creatures.”

“But a comet really does portend war, drought, plague, and famine,” said Pulcheria, with full conviction; and Paula added: 

“So I have always believed.”

“But very wrongly,” replied the leech.  “There are a thousand reasons to the contrary; and it is a crime to confirm the mob in such a superstition.  It fills them with grief and alarms; and, would you believe it—­such anguish of mind, especially when the Nile is so low and there is more sickness than usual, gives rise to numberless forms of disease?  We shall have our hands full, Rufinus.”

“I am yours to command,” replied the old man.  “But at the same time, if the tailed wanderer must do some mischief, I would rather it should break folks’ arms and legs than turn their brains.”

“What a wish!” exclaimed Paula.  “But you often say things—­and I see things about you too—­which seem to me extraordinary.  Yesterday you promised. . . .”

“To explain to you why I gather about me so many of God’s creatures who have to struggle under the burden of life as cripples, or with injured limbs.”

“Just so,” replied Paula.  “Nothing can be more truly merciful than to render life bearable to such hapless beings. . . .”

“But still, you think,” interrupted the eager old man, “that this noble motive alone would hardly account for the old oddity’s riding his hobby so hard.—­Well, you are right.  From my earliest youth the structure of the bones in man and beast has captivated me exceedingly; and just as collectors of horns, when once they have a complete series of every variety of stag, roe, and gazelle, set to work with fresh zeal to find deformed or monstrous growths, so I have found pleasure in studying every kind of malformation and injury in the bones of men and beasts.”

“And to remedy them,” added Philippus.  “It has been his passion from childhood.

“And the passion has grown upon me since I broke my own hip bone and know what it means,” the old man went on.  “With the help of my fellow-student there, from a mere dilettante I became a practised surgeon; and, what is more, I am one of those who serve Esculapius at my own expense.  However, there are accessory reasons for which I have chosen such strange companions:  deformed slaves are cheap and besides that, certain investigations afford me inestimable and peculiar satisfaction.  But this cannot interest a young girl.”

“Indeed it does!” cried Paula.  “So far as I have understood Philippus when he explains some details of natural history. . . .”

“Stay,” laughed Rufinus, “our friend will take good care not to explain this.  He regards it as folly, and all he will admit is that no surgeon or student could wish for better, more willing, or more amusing house-mates than my cripples.”