opened, Honore knocked at
the door.

"Well, come in!" said the fretful invalid. "Why, Honore,--well, it
serves you right for stopping to knock. Sit down."

Each took a hasty, scrutinizing glance at the other; and, after a pause,
Doctor Keene said:

"Honore, you are pretty badly stove."

M. Grandissime smiled.

"Do you think so, Doctor? I will be more complimentary to you; you might
look more sick."

"Oh, I have resumed my trade," replied Doctor Keene.

"So I have heard; but, Charlie, that is all in favor of the people who
want a skilful and advanced physician and do not mind killing him; I
should advise you not to do it."

"You mean" (the incorrigible little doctor smiled cynically) "if I
should ask your advice. I am going to get well, Honore."

His visitor shrugged.

"So much the better. I do confess I am tempted to make use of you in
your official capacity, right now. Do you feel strong enough to go with
me in your gig a little way?"

"A professional call?"

"Yes, and a difficult case; also a confidential one."

"Ah! confidential!" said the little man, in his painful, husky irony.
"You want to get me into the sort of scrape I got our 'professor'
into, eh?"

"Possibly a worse one," replied the amiable Creole.

"And I must be mum, eh?"

"I would prefer."

"Shall I need any instruments? No?"--with a shade of disappointment on
his face.

He pulled a bell-rope and ordered his gig to the street door.

"How are affairs about town?" he asked, as he made some slight
preparation for the street.

"Excitement continues. Just as I came along, a private difficulty
between a Creole and an Americain drew instantly half the street
together to take sides strictly according to belongings and without
asking a question. My-de'-seh, we are having, as Frowenfeld says, a war
of human acids and alkalies."

They descended and drove away. At the first corner the lad who drove
turned, by Honore's direction, toward the rue Dauphine, entered it,
passed down it to the rue Dumaine, turned into this toward the river
again and entered the rue Conde. The route was circuitous. They stopped
at the carriage-door of a large brick house. The wicket was opened by
Clemence. They alighted without driving in.

"Hey, old witch," said the doctor, with mock severity; "not hung yet?"

The houses of any pretension to comfortable spaciousness in the closely
built parts of the town were all of the one, general, Spanish-American
plan.