. By eleven o'clock he seemed,
outwardly at least, to be at peace with everything in Louisiana that he
considered Louisianian, properly so-called; as to all else he was ready
for war, as in peace one should be. While in this mood, and performing
at a sideboard the solemn rite of _las onze_, news incidentally reached
him, by the mouth of his busy second, Hippolyte, of Frowenfeld's
trouble, and despite 'Polyte's protestations against the principal in a
pending "affair" appearing on the street, he ordered the carriage and
hurried to the apothecary's.

* * * * *

When Frowenfeld awoke, the fingers of his clock were passing the
meridan. His fever was gone, his brain was calm, his strength in good
measure had returned. There had been dreams in his sleep, too; he had
seen Clotilde standing at the foot of his bed. He lay now, for a moment,
lost in retrospection.

"There can be no doubt about it," said he, as he rose up, looking back
mentally at something in the past.

The sound of carriage-wheels attracted his attention by ceasing before
his street door. A moment later the voice of Agricola was heard in the
shop greeting Raoul. As the old man lifted the head of his staff to tap
on the inner door, Frowenfeld opened it.

"Fusilier to the rescue!" said the great Louisianian, with a grasp of
the apothecary's hand and a gaze of brooding admiration.

Joseph gave him a chair, but with magnificent humility he insisted on
not taking it until "Professor Frowenfeld" had himself sat down.

The apothecary was very solemn. It seemed to him as if in this little
back room his dead good name was lying in state, and these visitors were
coming in to take their last look. From time to time he longed for more
light, wondering why the gravity of his misadventure should seem
so great.

"H-m-h-y dear Professor!" began the old man. Pages of print could not
comprise all the meanings of his smile and accent; benevolence,
affection, assumed knowledge of the facts, disdain of results,
remembrance of his own youth, charity for pranks, patronage--these were
but a few. He spoke very slowly and deeply and with this smile of a
hundred meanings. "Why did you not send for me, Joseph? Sir, whenever
you have occasion to make a list of the friends who will stand by you,
_right or wrong_--h-write the name of Citizen Agricola Fusilier at the
top! Write it large and repeat it at the bottom! You understand me,
Joseph?--and, mark