"Why, to tell the truth, I have not thought of it to-day. In fact, I do not feel it now."
"So one might assume. Then as regards the sense of dying as you started up from sleep?"
"That has not troubled me the last two nights, as I now recall it."
"Not unnaturally."
"But I protest to you, monsieur, that I feel much better on the whole."
"You have every reason to do so."
"In what way?"
"In every way. There is nothing the matter with you!"
"You jest, surely. The positive symptoms"
"Have all disappeared."
"Why?"
"One cannot say."
"Is it in consequence of anything?"
"I do not know."
"Then I shall not die?"
"Yes—of old age."
"And the worthy Malot?"
"Can only bear me out in every detail."
"But that scourge of humanity, Algerbi el Santo?"
"May go to the father of all his tribe in Hades!" exclaimed de la Spina with great heartiness.
Hampton Hill, 1906.
