entleness that Doctor
AEacus felt that he must insult him.

"What are you murmuring there?" said he rudely.

Ursus was amazed, and restricted himself to saying,--

"Murmurings are for the young, and moans for the aged. Alas, I moan!"

AEacus replied,--

"Be assured of this--if you attend a sick person, and he dies, you will
be punished by death."

Ursus hazarded a question.

"And if he gets well?"

"In that case," said the doctor, softening his voice, "you will be
punished by death."

"There is little difference," said Ursus.

The doctor replied,--

"If death ensues, we punish gross ignorance; if recovery, we punish
presumption. The gibbet in either case."

"I was ignorant of the circumstance," murmured Ursus. "I thank you for
teaching me. One does not know all the beauties of the law."

"Take care of yourself."

"Religiously," said Ursus.

"We know what you are about."

"As for me," thought Ursus, "that is more than I always know myself."

"We could send you to prison."

"I see that perfectly, gentlemen."

"You cannot deny your infractions nor your encroachments."

"My philosophy asks pardon."

"Great audacity has been attributed to you."

"That is quite a mistake."

"It is said that you have cured the sick."

"I am the victim of calumny."

The three pairs of eyebrows which were so horribly fixed on Ursus
contracted. The three wise faces drew near to each other, and whispered.
Ursus had the vision of a vague fool's cap sketched out above those
three empowered heads. The low and requisite whispering of the trio was
of some minutes' duration, during which time Ursus felt all the ice and
all the scorch of agony. At length Minos, who was president, turned to
him and said angrily,--

"Go away!"

Ursus felt something like Jonas when he was leaving the belly of the
whale.

Minos continued,--

"You are discharged."

Ursus said to himself,--

"They won't catch me at this again. Good-bye, medicine!"

And he added in his innermost heart,--

"From henceforth I will carefully allow them to die."

Bent double, he bowed everywhere; to the doctors, to the busts, the
tables, the walls, and retiring backwards through the door, disappeared
almost as a shadow melting into air.

He left the hall slowly, like an innocent man, and rushed from the
street rapidly, like a guilty one. The officers of justice are so
singular and obscure in their ways that even when acquitted one flies
from them.