Salvator sat alone in an upper room when the rogue was shown in to him. The physician was of a piece with his chamber, moth-blown and fusty. He wore a long black robe with a fur tippet, and a fur cap was on his head, from which his locks hung down, the colour of dry ginger. He looked spoiled and stained, from much handling of medicaments, and his jaw seemed to goggle with his eyes. The room, beyond a table, an astral globe, a bookcase stuffed with treatises, and a chair or two, possessed little furniture, and no sign whatever of the usual mummified paraphernalia of a dealer in the healing arts. He turned, from his occupation of filling a test-tube from a glass phial, to face, somewhat impatiently, the visitor. “Well, friend, and what is thy need?” The rogue fumbled his doffed hat. “None of my own, master, but my brother’s. A waits in the street below, unwitting of my purpose.” “What need? What purpose? State, state, and be done with it.” “The purpose to have his wits cured, if so be I can entice him into your honour’s presence.” “What, then, hath befallen his wits?” “What not, great sir? A thinks every one he meets doth owe him money, and importunes the same for payment.” “A kleptomaniacal symptom; from mental possession to material. You did well to approach me timely. Since when---- But I can judge nothing without I see him. Send him up to me.” “Mayhap he’ll be persuaded so he come alone. But he’ll ask you payment.” “That were to put the cart before the horse; to fee the patient--_husteron proteron_. But dispatch, dispatch.” The rogue descended to the street, and took Griselda’s bridle from her master. “Go, make your own terms,” said he, as if well pleased, “while I hold this. A waits you up above.” Soberly, and without suspicion, the musician mounted the stairs. At the top Salvator met him, and, conducting him into his room, shut the door. “A moment,” said he, “while I examine your eyes.” He took a lens to the astonished man, and effected a minute scrutiny, muttering the while-- “A visible wildness; dilation of the pupil and congestion. You have never slept in the moonlight, now?” “Never, sir.” “H’m! Nor been disappointed of a fortune, nor suffered a blow on the head, nor brooded on the covetous infidelity of a loved mistress?” “Will you tell me plainly, sir, what are the terms you offer for my services?” “We’ll come to that. Though ’tis true a physician usually asks a fee, not gives it. My services are to you, good man.” “Then, sir, I decline at once. What? pay you for bringing you custom!” “You bring me none, I assure you, if not yourself.” “I’ll bring you none, indeed, nor prostitute my art to such a bargain. Why, do you think I lead the life I do for pleasure?” “What life, now?” “The life of a beggar, sir; the life of one who harps about the streets for alms.” “Harps?” “Do not you know? Else why was I brought here?” “Why, indeed? Your brother must explain.” “Brother! What brother?” “Him that came first.”