Come along! said the stupid girl to Victor, and drew him to her father's. The Italian made his windmill gesture, and placed himself against Victor's ear and whispered into it, _Dio vi salvi!_[117] and the latter thanked him in a still lower voice in Italian, _Gran mercè!_[118] Thereupon Tostato breathed three or four uncommonly soft-voiced curses into Victor's ear-cell. He had not lost his wits, but only his voice, and that only by a cold. He cursed and condoled about it, that to-morrow, of all days, he should have to be dumb as a haddock, precisely when so much was to be cut. Victor congratulated him sincerely on that very account, and begged him to accept him till to-morrow, not only as Doctor, but also as partner and spokesman; he would talk for him in the shop to-morrow, in order the better and incognito to see all that went on. "If you will tell me to-day," replied Tostato, "one more funny story." And now when he actually produced the adventure of Zeusel with an Italian systole and diastole of the hands, and when Tostato grew foolish with laughing at the joke,--(the Italian and Frenchman laugh with the whole body, the Englishman only in the brain,)--then was it no wonder that he took him into partnership at once. His doctorship he began by pulling off the patient's stocking and binding it round the untuned throat, for a warm stocking is worn with equal medicinal benefit on foot and neck; with a garter it would be different. Now the beauty and stupidity of the programme-pray-er appeared greater than ever in his eyes; he would gladly have kissed her, but it was impracticable: the Bijoutier followed him about everywhere, eager for his witty overflowings, and held both ears under to catch the drops. He took this occasion, as he thought of the German indifference to wit and the fine arts, to lay down the fundamentally false proposition,--The Englishman, the Frenchman, and the Italian are _men_; the Germans are _citizens_. The latter _earn_ life; the former _enjoy_ it. And the Dutch are a cheaper edition of the Germans on mere printing paper and without engravings.