"Here," answered Ruggiero bringing his heavy bony hand down upon his
huge chest with a noise that made the chemist start, and then chuckle.

"Just there, eh?" said the latter ironically. "You have the health of a
horse. Go to dinner."

"I tell you it is there," returned Ruggiero. "Sometimes it is quite
quiet, as it is now, but sometimes it jumps and threshes like a dolphin
at sea."

"H'm! The heart, eh?" The old man came round his counter and applied his
ear to Ruggiero's breast. "Regular as a steam engine," he said. "When
does it jump, as you call it? When you go up hill?"

Ruggiero laughed.

"Am I old or fat?" he inquired contemptuously. "It happened first this
morning. I was waiting in the hotel and a lady came by and spoke to
me--about a certain boat."

"A lady? H'm! Young perhaps, and pretty?"

"That is my business. Then half an hour later I was talking to the Son
of the Fool. You know him I daresay. And it began to jump again, and I
said to myself, '"Health is the first thing," as the old people say.' So
I came for the medicine."

The chemist chuckled audibly.