Joseph's departure left my mind in an unsettled state. I hadn't the
slightest interest in the great surgeon who had made the cure of the
year, nor in the stout advocate with his nickel-plated digestive
apparatus. Both of them might have broken every mirror in the hotel and
have thrown the fragments out of the window, and the manager after them,
without raising my pulse a beat. Neither did the medical convention nor
the doctor's exhibit cause me a moment's thought. Such things were
commonplace and of every-day occurrence. Only the dramatic in life
appeals to so staid and gray an old painter as myself, and even Joseph's
picturesque imagination could not imbue either one of the incidents of
the morning with that desirable quality.
What really did appeal to me as I conjured up in my mind the picture of
the fat man sprawled over the sofa-cushions roaring with laughter was
the duel and the causes that led up to it. Why, if the man was his
friend, had the doctor selected the hilarious advocate as an antagonist,
and what could have induced the surgeon to pick out that particular
section of his friend's surface in which to insert his sword.
That same night, in the smoking-room of the hotel, Joseph caught sight
of me as he passed the open door and moved forward to my table. He had
changed his dress of the morning, discarding the inflammatory waistcoat,
and was now upholstered in a full suit of black. He explained that there
were some friends of his living in the village who were going to have
some music. The Englishman was in bed and asleep, and now that he was
sure that I was comfortable, he could give himself some little freedom,
with his mind at rest.