“What’s the matter?” said the chemist.

At this question the young man dropped the whole lot on the ground with a crash.

“Imbecile!” cried Homais, “awkward lout! blockhead! confounded ass!”

But suddenly controlling himself⁠—

“I wished, doctor, to make an analysis, and primo I delicately introduced a tube⁠—”

“You would have done better,” said the physician, “to introduce your fingers into her throat.”

His colleague was silent, having just before privately received a severe lecture about his emetic, so that this good Canivet, so arrogant and so verbose at the time of the clubfoot, was today very modest. He smiled without ceasing in an approving manner.