Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/26

8 "In a quarter of an hour, doctor," was the reply.

I guessed at once that this was Dr. Froeber, and that the lady in black was the Countess. From her age I concluded she was the mother of Count Szémioth, and the precautionary measures taken concerning her told me clearly enough that her reason was affected.

Some moments later the doctor himself came to my room.

"As the Count is indisposed," he said to me, "I must introduce myself to you. I am Dr. Froeber, at your service, and I am delighted to make the acquaintance of a savant known to all readers of the Scientific and Literary Gazette of Koenigsberg. Have you been properly waited on?"

I replied to his compliments as well as I could, and told him that if it was time to go down to dinner I was ready to accompany him.

When we were in the dining-hall, a majordomo brought us liqueurs and several piquant and highly spiced dishes on a silver salver to induce appetite, after a northern custom.

"Allow me, sir, in my office as doctor, to recommend a glass of that starka, a true Cognac brandy casked forty years ago. It is a queen of liqueurs. Take a Drontheim anchovy; nothing