Page:A Menina do Narizinho Arrebitado (1920).pdf/19

 on the patients. The two yellow-bellied catfish were in one of the beds, wrapped in three blankets, very pale and sweating profusely. Scaly took their pulse and saw that they had a high fever.

— God forbid they should die!" he said to Narizinho. "Doctor Snail is a great doctor, but all his patients die... He has no luck at all...

Further on, in another bed, the cockroach father moaned, mortally wounded by the green frog.

— How is this patient?" asked the prince.

— Very badly, replied Snail. He's broken five legs, torn a wing and is all broken up inside. I gave him Master Scarab's pills, but I have no hope of saving him.

— Has he been to the confessional yet, the prince asked?



— He went to confession just now and is going to take communion right now. Here comes Friar Mantis with the sacraments.

No sooner had the doctor said these words than Friar Mantis entered, accompanied by a little choir mosquito. The scene was so sad that Narizinho felt like crying. The friar cheered the patient up, spoke of the beauty of heaven and offered him the sacred host: a small fish scale. The poor man couldn't even sit up in bed. The nursing sisters