staggered a little as she stretched out her arms, the stuff here and there gave with the inflections of her bust. Then she went to fetch a bottle of water, and she was melting some pieces of sugar when the chemist arrived. The servant had been to fetch him in the tumult. Seeing his pupil with his eyes open he drew a long breath; then going around him he looked at him from head to foot.
“Fool!” he said, “really a little fool! A fool in four letters! A phlebotomy’s a big affair, isn’t it! And a fellow who isn’t afraid of anything; a kind of squirrel, just as he is who climbs to vertiginous heights to shake down nuts. Oh, yes! you just talk to me, boast about yourself! Here’s a fine fitness for practising pharmacy later on; for under serious circumstances you may be called before the tribunals in order to enlighten the minds of the magistrates, and you would have to keep your head then, to reason, show yourself a man, or else pass for an imbecile.”