University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
DOCTOR FOSSYL AND SANSOUCY.

Eleven o'clock had just struck on the following morning,
and Mr. Sansoucy was wiping his pen, with his completed
morning task before him, when he perceived that
an equipage stopped before the entry which led to his
office; and in a few moments a man's step was heard
ascending the stairs.

With that patience which becomes a necessity with official
persons and editors, Mr. Sansoucy threw himself back
in his chair and fixed his eyes calmly upon the door.

It opened and gave entrance to Doctor Fossyl.

Doctor Fossyl was clad, as usual, from head to foot, in
black; and his thin hair stood erect, as it always did,
upon his yellow and emaciated forehead. His legs were
cased in their old splatterdashes, and were marvels of
slenderness—in his hand he carried the ebony snuff-box
from which he had regaled himself with a pinch as he
ascended.

So far, every thing in Doctor Fossyl's appearance was
just as usual; but his countenance and manner had undergone
a marked change. The heavy grey brows no longer
hooked themselves, so to speak, together over the caverns
in which his restless and bitter eyes rolled gloomily or
satirically—his thin lips were no longer drawn across his
yellow teeth, with a sneer at himself and everything:—
his whole countenance was subdued and earnest in its
expression; and an eager, craving look in the deep eyes
indicated emotions of a description very unusual with the
cynical physician.

He entered, and said to Mr. Sansoucy, with cold
indifference:

“Good morning, sir—I called to tell you that your
friend Lacklitter no longer needs my services.”

“Ah, doctor! you bring me very welcome news,” said
Sansoucy, “sit down—those stairs are terribly fatiguing”—

“Yes, they are,” said the doctor, wiping an imperceptible
moisture from his thin brow, and seating himself.

“And the consequence of the recovery of Joe Lacklitter
is—”

“My money—yes.”

“I had the word upon my tongue, doctor,” said Sansoucy,
who seemed to know his visitor well, and so came
at once to the point. “I would have allowed another
man to talk about the weather, or politics, or anything
first; and so come in due time to mention, quite incidentally,
his “little bill”—but your time—”

“Is valuable: you are right.”

“Certainly, Doctor.”

“And the money is earned fairly.”

“Yes, again.”

“Why not ask for it directly then? It is the affectation
of all professions, sir, to make believe that they feel
a repugnance to asking for their dues. I don't.”

“I know it, Doctor.”

“I have just received thirteen hundred dollars, which I
was entitled to, and asked for—and to have seen the face
of the man I had saved, only after the most tremendous
contest with death, you would have imagined that I had
asked him to make me a present of the money.”

“That is a tolerably respectable sum of money, Doctor,
to draw for at one minute's sight,” said Sansoucy, good
humoredly.

“It was earned.”

“No doubt.”

“Hardly and laboriously earned. Look at me.”

“You look badly.”

“I am worn out. I have a constitution of iron, in
spite of my emaciation; but I am nearly dead for want
of sleep, and from anxiety.”

“This man?”

“Yes.”

“Do you feel wearing anxiety?”

“I? Yes! Perhaps it is my curse, but I feel throb
by throb, agony by agony, the suffering of my patients,
and until they are snatched from the grasp of death, death
clutches at me.”

Sansoucy gazed with curiosity upon the strange man
before him, who spoke so coldly of his suffering.

“And when I am worn out with this grim struggle,”
said the Doctor, “I am denied my money.”

“Not denied, Doctor!”

“Yes—not seldom denied. But I get it?” I keep no
books—let us arrange our account, and end it.”

“Willingly.”

“Here is the account for attendance on Lacklitter—
I have purposely made it as moderate as possible—not to
do you a favor, but for my own reasons.”

Sansoucy looked at it.

“Why, Doctor, you rob yourself!” he said, “it is
nothing.”

“Gold, bank notes, or a check.”

And Doctor Fossyl pretended to have misunderstood.

“Really, Doctor—it does not look fair to pay you this
trifle—”

“No discount.”

“What are you talking about, Doctor?”

“My money.”

“I say it is robbing you.”

“Pay me.”

And this was all Sansoucy could extract. He smiled,
determined to humor the physician, and sitting down,
wrote a check for the amount.

Doctor Fossyl then carefully receipted the account, and
presented it solemnly to Mr. Sansoucy, as though calling
upon him to witness that he had delivered it. Then he
put the check in his waistcoat pocket, and remained silent
for some time.

“A pretty character that Heartsease is!” he said, at
length, “a perfect grasshopper!”

“Last night you suggested his resemblance to a butterfly,
my dear Doctor.”

“So I did, and it is even more appropriate.”

“Ah, let us be lenient!”

“We are not called upon to be.”

“I think we are.”

“How? but here we come to a discussion about the
Bible, which we have already gone through.”

Sansoucy nodded, and was silent. Doctor Fossyl looked
keenly at him.

“You went away thinking about my reply to your
friend, Heartsease, last night,” he said, “did you not?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“And what did you think of it?”

“Think?”

“What feeling did it cause you, sir?”

“One of very great pleasure.”

“Why?”

“Because I believe you will be a happier man for your
belief, Doctor.”

“What does my happiness or unhappiness concern
you?”

“Nothing in my purse—to answer your question in the
spirit you ask it:—much in myself, personally, for I have
much regard for you.”

“You!”

“Yes.”

“For me.”

“Undoubtedly, Doctor.”

“Why?”

“First, because, when I had that terrible attack last
summer, your kindness and attention were beyond all
praise or acknowledgment—”

“Humph!”

“Secondly, because I know that your cold and bitter
manner conceals a heart full of kindness.”

“Bah! don't try to flatter me.”

“What should I gain?”

“I 'm rich.”

“I have enough, my dear philosopher; and I don't
want any of your money.”

“And so you are glad that I recognize my responsibility,
in words at least, to a supreme being?”

“Yes.”

“Humph!”

And Doctor Fossyl was silent. Then looking in the
same keen way at Sansoucy, he said:

“Do you know I used to despise you?”

“No, Doctor.”

“I did, however.”

“I am sorry; why?”

“Because I thought you just such a butterfly as Heartsease.”

Sansoucy shook his head.

“I 'm afraid I 'm a terrible trifler yet, Doctor.”

“You are nothing of the sort.”

“What am I then?”

“I don't pretend to say—I only say I despise you

no longer. Formerly I despised not only you, but all
men.”

“What a bitter time of it you must have had.”

“How bitter?”

“With so much poison in your heart.”

“Poison, sir?”

“Yes, Doctor—I think that rage, and bitterness, and
contempt, are the most acrid of all poisons to the heart.”

“Humph!”

Sansoucy observed that this monosyllable represented,
in their conversation, a species of acquiescence on the
Doctor's part, and said:

“Come, am I not right?”

“I do not dispute it.”

“There, Doctor, I have gained a victory.”

“A very poor one—I am by no means satisfied, sir, that
I was not right in despising mankind.”

“Ah, Doctor, permit me to say that you were a thousand
times wrong.”

“Prove it!”

“I am embarrassed by the mass of proofs—the fertility
of the fields of illustration—I cannot. But this I will
say, that the annals of the world are crowded with the
most splendid and conspicuous figures, which represent,
each one of them, some noble virtue, some lofty career—
something to make us look upon the great, true man, as
the worthy creation of an Almighty and all-true Being,
supreme, and good, and adorable. I need not speak of
these—they stretch all along the far fields of the past, and
rise against the horizon of history like mountains.”

“And the valleys?”

“I understand you—but they prove that the world is
not flat.”

Doctor Fossyl looked at his companion's careless and
smiling face, and said:

“Your philosophy is very fine—I am only sorry I can't
embrace it.”

“Try.”

Doctor Fossyl shook his head, and was silent.”