"Very good; if that prove so you shall cut off my arm, but I happen to
know something of gangrene, and there is none about me."

"You cannot know as much about it as we do."

"Possibly; but as far as I can make out, you know nothing at all."

"That's rather a strong expression."

"I don't care whether it be strong or weak; you can go now."

In a couple of hours everyone whom the surgeons had told of my obstinacy
came pestering me. Even the prince-palatin wrote to me that the king was
extremely surprised at my lack of courage. This stung me to the quick,
and I wrote the king a long letter, half in earnest and half in jest, in
which I laughed at the ignorance of the surgeons, and at the simplicity
of those who took whatever they said for gospel truth. I added that as an
arm without a hand would be quite as useless as no arm at all, I meant to
wait till it was necessary to cut off the arm.

My letter was read at Court, and people wondered how a man with gangrene
could write a long letter of four pages. Lubomirski told me kindly that I
was mistaken in laughing at my friends, for the three best surgeons in
Warsaw could not be mistaken in such a simple case.

"My lord, they are not deceived themselves, but they want to deceive me."

"Why should they?"

"To make themselves agreeable to Branicki, who is in a dangerous state,