"Do you dare insult a sick man?" I cried; and to the clerk, who was
about to put me to this indignity, I said, "Touch me at your peril, sir;
for though I die for it, you will pay for your temerity."

The Jew, who had been looking on at my examination (quite unabashed at
the mortification of his own), here interposed by telling me that the
thing was a common form and must be gone through with. I was about to
shake him off for his impertinence when a chance phrase of his, "free
lodging," enlightened me. This, then, was not what I understood by a
hospital--using the applied sense of the word--but one of those original
institutions, so-called, which were, of course, guest-houses for the
poor. The moment I understood that, I saw that I and Brother Hyacinth
had been at cross-purposes. I pulled out my handful of money and spilled
some pieces upon the floor. Instantly the great friar behind me clapped
his foot upon them. The Jew hunted down the rest.

Brother Hyacinth now recoiled. "What does this mean?" he asked. "Are you
a fool, or a thief, or an impudent rascal?"

"You are mistaken," I replied, "I am none; but it is clear that I have
deceived you. Had I understood the real objects of your hospital--which,
I am compelled to add, you have most successfully concealed--I should
not have been before you. I am ill and in great pain. I supposed that
you could give me assistance. And even now, should that be possible, I
would accept it, and pay for it." Brother Hyacinth, with keen
displeasure, said that mine was a case for the police, and that, while
he should decline my money, he was minded to detain my person for their
consideration; but the Jew thereupon broke in with more assurance than I
should have thought him capable of. "Your pardon, very reverend," he
said, "but this is a case for the best physician in Rovigo, and the best