"I have always been most careful not to give my conscience any license to trouble me," retorted the other with a certain curtness of tone which was not offensive; "and I have lived now for some considerable time. I am really much older than I look," he concluded, giving Cosmo such a keen glance that the young man could not I help a smile. The other went on looking at him steadily for a while, then let his eyes wander to a door in a distant part of the long room as if impatient for the coming of the dinner. Then giving it up: "A man who has lived actively, actively I say, the last twenty years may well feel as old as Methuselah. Lord Nelson was but a circumstance in my life. I wonder, had he lived, how he would have taken all this." A slight movement of his hand seemed to carry this allusion outside the confines of the vaulted noisy room, to indicate all the out-of-doors of the world. Cosmo remarked that the hand was muscular, shapely, and extremely well cared for. "I think there can be no doubt about the nature of his feelings if he were living." Cosmo's voice was exactly non-committal. His interlocutor grunted slightly. "H'm. He would have done nothing but groan and complain about anything and everything. No, he wouldn't have taken it laughing. Very poor physique. Very. Frightful hypochondriac. . . . I am a doctor, you know." Cantelucci was going to attend himself on his two guests. He presented to the doctor a smoking soup tureen enveloped in a napkin. The doctor assumed at once a business-like air, and at his invitation Cosmo held out his plate. The doctor helped him carefully. "Don't forget the wine, my wine, Anzelmo," he said to Cantelucci, who answered by a profound bow. "I saved his life once," he continued after the innkeeper had gone away. The tone was particularly significant. Cosmo, partly repelled and partly amused by the man, enquired whether the worthy host had been very ill. The doctor swallowed the last spoonful of soup. "Ill," he said. "He had a gash that long in his side and a set of forty-pound fetters in his legs. I cured both complaints. Not without some risk to myself, as you may imagine. There was an epidemic of hanging and shooting in the South of Italy then." He noticed Cosmo's steady stare and raised the corners of his mouth with an effect of geniality on his broad rosy face. "In '99, you know. I wonder I didn't die of it too. I was considerably younger then and my humane instincts, early enthusiasms, and so on had led me into pretty bad company. However, I had also pretty good friends. What with one thing and another I am pretty well known all over Italy. My name is Martel--Doctor Martel. You probably may have heard. . . ." He threw a searching glance at Cosmo, who bowed non-committally, and went on without a pause: "I am the man who brought vaccine to Italy, first. Cantelucci was trying to tell me your name but really I couldn't make it out."