After Pollitto’s words he trembled more and more like a man with the ague, and before every saloon-door mirror he halted and took a brief survey of his face. Pollitto was right—his skin was dead and full of unhealthy pallor. It was plain that he could not work in his present condition. His trembling fingers could scarcely hold a pencil, much less guide it through the precise demands of a drafting-board. He decided to go to the library and read. But the books on architecture which always enthralled him could not hold his shifting attention. Finally in despair he went up to the librarian and said: “Have you any books on poison?” The woman eyed him with a cold, incurious glance. “Historical or medical?” she snapped out, as she went on stamping mysterious numbers in the pile of books before her. “Both!” She consulted a catalogue and made a list for him. He sat all day devouring books which the librarian had recommended. He did not even go out for lunch. He read historical and romantic instances with a keen, morbid relish; but when it came to the medical books his heart quickened and he followed causes and effects breathlessly. By nightfall he had a relentless knowledge of every poison in the calendar. He knew what to expect from arsenic or strychnine or vitriol. He learned which poisons destroyed tissues, which acted as narcotics, which were irritants. He identified the hemlock, the horse-chestnut, the deadly toadstools. In short, he absorbed and retained everything on the subject. It seemed that the world teemed with poisons; one could be sure of nothing. Even beautiful flowers were not to be trusted. He was so upset by all he had read that he could scarcely eat dinner. He went to an obscure _pension_ in a wretched basement, where he was sure he would be unknown, and, after two or three mouthfuls of soup and a spoonful of rice boiled with tomato, he rose, paid for his meal, and went out to tramp up and down past the tawdry shops of middle Kearny Street. He was trotting aimlessly in the direction of Market Street when he felt a tug at his coat-sleeve. He turned. Minetti was smiling genially up at him. “Come,” said the hunchback, “what is your hurry? Have you had coffee yet? I was thinking that—” Fernet’s heart sank at once. And yet he managed to say boldly: “I have given up drinking coffee. You can see for yourself what a wretched complexion I have. And to-day I have scarcely eaten.” “Pooh!” cried Minetti. “A cup of coffee will do you good.” Fernet began to draw away in futile terror. “No!” he protested, with frightened vehemence. “No, I tell you! I won’t drink the stuff! It is useless for you to—” Minetti began to laugh with scornful good-humor. “What has come over you?” he drawled, half-closing his eyes. “Are you afraid?” And as he said this Fernet glanced instinctively at the puny wrists, no bigger than a pullet’s wing, and replied, boldly: