Sir Asinus laid down his violin; and stretching himself, said carelessly: "I shouldn't be surprised if you had brought some dun in your train. Decidedly you possess the _gettatura_--that faculty called the Evil Eye." The step ascended. "Who is it--whose heavy step can that be?" said Sir Asinus, rising; "it is not Randolph: it might be yours coming from Belle-bouche's----" Sir Asinus caught sight of a large cocked hat rising from beneath, followed by a substantial person. "O Heaven!" he cried, "it's Doctor Small! The door--the door!" "Too late!" said Jacques, laughing; "the Doctor will find the stairs suddenly darkened if you close the door; and then he will know you are not absent, only playing him a trick!" "True! true!" cried Sir Asinus in despair; "where shall I go? I am lost!" "The refuge of comedy-characters is left," said Jacques--"the closet!" "You will betray me!" "No, no," sighed Jacques reproachfully; "bad as you are, Sir Asinus----" But the worthy knight had disappeared in the closet, and Jacques was silent. The cocked hat, as we have said, was succeeded by a pair of shoulders; the shoulders now appeared joined to a good portly body; and lastly, the well-clad legs of worthy Doctor Small appeared; and passing along the passage, he entered the room. "Good morning, my young friend," he said politely; "a very beautiful day." And he sat down. "Exceedingly beautiful, Doctor," said Jacques sadly; "and I was just thinking how pleasant my ride would be. Did you pass our friend going out?" "No; I was anxious to see him." "He was in the room a few minutes since," said Jacques; "what a pity that you missed him." "I regret it; for this is, I think, the third time I have attempted to find him. He is a wild young man--a very wild young man," said the Doctor, shaking his head. "Yes, yes," sighed Jacques, imitating the Doctor's gesture; "I am sometimes anxious about him." And Jacques sighed and touched his forehead. "Here, you know, Doctor." "Ah?" asked the Doctor, wiping his face with a silk handkerchief, and leaning on his stick. "Yes, sir; he has betrayed unmistakable evidences of lunacy of late." The closet door creaked. "It's astonishing how many rats there are in this place," said Jacques; "that closet seems to be their head-quarters." "Indeed?" said the Doctor; "but you surprise me by saying that Thomas has a tendency to insanity. I thought his one of the justest and most brilliant minds in college. Idle, yes, very idle, and procrastinating; but still he is no common young man." The closet murmured: there was no ground for charging the rats with this; so Jacques observed that "the winds here were astonishing--they were stirring when all else was still." "I did not remark it," said the Doctor, "but this----" "Affair of Tom's lunacy, sir?" The Doctor nodded with a benevolent smile, and restored his handkerchief to the pocket of his long, heavy, flapped coat.