fretzers, by hook or by crook, constitutes riches.
"Deuce take people who come bothering here!"
The rat-tat is answered by a savage bark, in which is much of lupine howl, as if a wolf should bark. Then a window is opened above the door of Six-four, and an illtempered voice says, "Deuce take people who come bothering here!"
A young girl, shivering in the rain wrapped in a thin cloak, asks if Dr. Trifulgas is at home.
"He is, or he is not, according to circumstances."
"I want him to come to my father, who is dying."
"Where is he dying?"
"At Val Karnion, four kertzes from here."
"And his name?"
"Vort Kartif."
"Vort Kartif, the herring-salter?"
"Yes; and if Dr. Trifulgas—"
"Dr. Trifulgas is not at home."
And the window is closed with a slam, while the swishes of the wind and the swashes of the rain mingle in a deafening uproar.
III.
A hard man, this Dr. Trifulgas, with little compassion, and attending no one unless paid cash in advance. His old Hurzof, a mongrel of bulldog and spaniel, would have had more feeling than he. The house called Six-four admitted no poor, and opened only to the rich. Further, it had a regular tariff: so much for a typhoid fever, so much for a fit, so much for a pericarditis, and for other complaints which doctors invent by the dozen. Now, Vort Kartif, the herring-salter, was a poor man, and of low degree. Why should Dr. Trifulgas have taken any trouble, and on such a night?
"Is it nothing that I should have had to get up?" he murmured, as he went back to bed; "that alone is worth ten fretzers."
Hardly twenty minutes had passed, when the iron hammer was again struck on the door of Six-four. Much against his inclination the doctor left his bed, and leaned out of his window.
"Who is there?" he cried.
"I am the wife of Vort Kartif."
"The herringsalter of Val Karnion?"
"Yes; and, if you refuse to come, he will die."
"All right; you will be a widow."
"Here are twenty fretzers."
"Twenty fretzers for going to Val Karnion, four kertzes from here! Thank you! Be off with you!"
And the window was closed again. Twenty fretzers! A grand fee! Risk a cold or lumbago for twenty fretzers, especially when to-morrow one has to go to Kiltreno to visit the rich Edzingov, laid up with gout, which is valued at fifty fretzers the visit! With this agreeable prospect before him, Dr. Trifulgas slept more soundly than before.
Swish! Swash! and then rat-tat! rat-tat! rat-tat! To the noises of the squall were now added three blows of the knocker, struck by a more decided hand. The doctor slept. He woke, but in a fearful humour. When he opened the window the storm came in like a charge of shot.
"I am come about the herring-salter."
"That wretched herring-salter again!"
"I am his mother."
"May his mother, his wife, and his daughter perish with him!"
