Fernet groaned. “This is horrible—horrible!” he wept to himself. “I shall die like a starving rat with toasted cheese dangling just beyond reach. God help me to rouse myself! Surely the effects of the poison he has given me must soon wear off.... There he is, reading from that big book again. Perhaps he is contriving a way to put poison in my water even though I am able to watch him when he draws me a drink.... Poison—poison everywhere. It can even be administered with the prick of a needle. Why did I read about it? Chicken fried in olive-oil ... what torture!” ―――― The chicken fried in olive-oil was a triumph—Fernet knew all this by the wisps of appetizing fragrance which drifted from the sizzling pan. Minetti made a great stir over the preparations. The tender flesh had to be rubbed thoroughly with garlic and well dusted with salt and pepper. And a quarter of a bottle of yellow-green olive-oil was first placed in the pan. When everything was ready and the chicken cooked to a turn, Minetti carried it to Fernet with a great flourish. Fernet gritted his teeth and turned his face away. He did not have the courage to invent an excuse. Minetti laid it on the chair as usual. For two hours Fernet was tortured with the sight of this tempting morsel, but at the sound of the doctor’s step upon the stair the hunchback whisked away the chicken. “His appetite?” Minetti said, echoing the doctor’s query. “Why, one could not wish for better! Only this morning he despatched a chicken as if it had been no more than a soft-boiled egg. As a matter of fact, he is always hungry.” “Well, well,” beamed the doctor, “that is the best of signs, and it happens that way very often in nervous cases. You are a capital nurse, my good man, and by the end of the week, if you keep feeding him up in this fashion, he should be as hearty as a school-boy.” At that moment Minetti was called down-stairs by his landlord. Fernet struggled to lift himself; the doctor bent toward him. “This hunchback,” Fernet gasped, “he is trying to poison me. Already I have drunk four or five of his concoctions, and that is why I am in this condition ... helpless. And he is lying when he says that I have eaten. I have touched nothing for three days.” The doctor laid the patient back upon the pillow. “Poison you, my friend? And for what reason?” “Because I laughed at him. In God’s name, Doctor, see that you keep a straight face in his presence or else—” The doctor patted Fernet’s hand and straightened the sliding bedclothes. By this time Minetti had come back. The doctor and the hunchback whispered together in a far corner. Minetti laughed and tapped his head. At the door Fernet heard the doctor say: “Just keep up the good work and the idea will pass. It happens that way very often in nervous cases. I shall not look in again until the first of next week unless....” Fernet groaned aloud.