"Your fame would soon eclipse mine."

"Fame! fame!" exclaimed Julius, for an instant showing irritation. "I
would not give a penny-piece for fame if all the magicians of the East
came crying it down the streets! Why should I seek fame? What good would
it do me if I had it?"

"Well, well," said Lefevre; "let fame alone: you might be as unknown as
you like, and do a world of good in practice among the poor."

Julius looked at him, and set the cat down.

"My dear Lefevre," said he, "I did not think you could urge such common
twaddle! You know well enough,--nobody knows better,--first of all, that
there are already more men waiting to do that kind of thing than can
find occupation: why should I go down among them and try to take their
work? And you know, in the next place, that medical philanthropy, like
all other philanthropy, is so overdone that the race is fast
deteriorating; we strive with so much success to keep the sickly and the
diseased alive, that perfect health is scarcely known. Life without
health can be nothing but a weariness: why should it be reckoned a
praiseworthy thing to keep it going at any price? If life became a
burden to me, I should lay it down."

"But," said Lefevre, earnestly, "your life surely is not your own to do
with it what you like!"

"In the name of truth, Lefevre," answered Julius, "if my life is not my
own, what is? I get its elements from others, but I fashion it myself,