"What's the matter with you, in heaven's name, my poor Dubourg?" said Frédéric, taking the hand of the sick man, who had employed every known means to give himself an attack of fever. "Alas! my dear friend, I feel very ill." "How did it come on?" "Ah! it was brought on by something that happened--a terrible adventure; the shock of it was the cause of my illness." "You must see a doctor, first of all." "I will go for one, and an apothecary too," said Ménard, who was anxious for an excuse to go out into the open air. "No, no, my dear Monsieur Ménard," Dubourg interposed, in a faint voice; "I don't like doctors; we have plenty of time. Hippocrates himself said: _Vita brevis, ars longa, experientia fallax_." "Very true, monsieur le baron; but the same Hippocrates says in another place----" "Oh! for heaven's sake, drop Hippocrates!" cried Frédéric, fancying that he could read in Dubourg's eyes that he was not so ill as he chose to appear. "As you won't have a doctor, do at least tell us the cause of your illness, this terrible adventure----" "Yes," said Ménard, taking pains to seat himself as far as possible from the bed, where he could get the air from the hall. "Let us know if it might become contagious." Dubourg sat up in bed; he raised his eyes heaven-ward, uttered two or three plaintive groans, pulled his nightcap still further over his eyes, and began his tale in a most heartrending tone. "The excellent Ménard has undoubtedly told you that I received yesterday an invitation to one of the first houses in the city. At all events, that is what our landlady assured me--otherwise----" "Yes, he told me that--what next? explain yourself!" said Frédéric, impatient at Dubourg's roundabout way of reaching the facts. "Gently! I am in no condition to go so fast, my dear Frédéric.--Well, I started out in a cab last night, after making a careful toilet." "Yes; I noticed that you took one of my coats." "You know perfectly well that I lost my wardrobe with my berlin." "Well?" "By some fatality, it happened that I put the purse containing the whole of our fortune in the pocket of your coat." "Ah! this begins to look bad," whispered Frédéric, while Ménard, even more disturbed than he, began to draw his chair nearer. "Well? go on." "Well, monsieur le baron?" "Well, my dear and noble friends, on leaving that brilliant society, where, to tell the truth, I stayed rather late, I found no carriage at the door. I was alone, in a street that I did not know. Suddenly four cutthroats leaped upon me. Alas! I had no weapons, but I defended myself like a lion. But all in vain! They beat me and threw me down, and the worst of it is that they robbed me of all the money I had about me." "Great God! and you had our funds?" cried Ménard. "I did." "And your own fifteen thousand francs?"