Little Poems in Prose

“No, no, I tell you,—unless it were to cut off your head. Dirty damned a——— of dirty s—— —! “Wait,” said she, “you shall see.” And she pulled a bundle of papers from a wardrobe. It was nothing less than a collection of portraits of all the illustrious doctors of the period, litho- graphed by Maurin, just as you may have seen them exposed for sale upon the Quai Voltaire. “Hullo, do you recognize this one?” “Yes, it is X——; the name is on the bottom of the photograph anyhow, but I know him personally.” “I was sure of it. See, there is Z——, the man who said to his students in speaking of X——, ‘This monster who bears the blackness of his soul upon his face’ just because he did not agree with him. How one laughed at that in the Medical School long ago!—You will remem- ber? Ah, there is K——, who denounced to the Government the rebels who were in his care at the hospital. It was when the riots were on. How is it possible that so handsome a man should have had so mean a soul? And here now is W——, a famous English doctor. I picked him up while he was in Paris. He looks just like a young lady, doesn’t he?” And as I touched a packet tied up with string that lay on the little round table,—