e am I?" he asked in a faint voice. Then a handsome young man, who
had stood at his bedside, but whom he had not noticed until just now,
threw himself upon his knees, and grasping Salvator's right hand,
kissed it and bathed it with tears, as he cried again and again, "Oh!
my dear sir! my noble master! now it's all right; you are saved, you'll
get better."

"But do tell me"--began Salvator, when the young man begged him not to
exert himself, for he was too weak to talk; he would tell him all that
had happened. "You see, my esteemed and excellent sir," began the young
man, "you see, you were very ill when you came from Naples, but your
condition was not, I warrant, by any means so dangerous but that a few
simple remedies would soon have set you, with your strong constitution,
on your legs again, had you not through Carlos's well-intentioned
blunder in running off for the nearest physician fallen into the hands
of the redoubtable Pyramid Doctor, who was making all preparations for
bringing you to your grave."

"What do you say?" exclaimed Salvator, laughing heartily,
notwithstanding the feeble state he was in. "What do you say?--the
Pyramid Doctor? Ay, ay, although I was very ill, I saw that the little
knave in damask patchwork, who condemned me to drink his horrid,
loathsome devil's brew, wore on his head the obelisk from St. Peter's
Square--and so that's why you call him the Pyramid Doctor?"

"Why, good heavens!" said the young man, likewise laughing, "why,
Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni must have come to see you in his ominous
conical nightcap; and, do you know, you may see it flashing every
morning from his window in the Spanish Square like a portentous meteor.
But it's not by any means owing to this cap that he's called the
Pyramid Doctor; for that there's quite another reason. Doctor
Splendiano is a great lover of pictures, and possesses in truth quite a
choice collection, which he has gained by a practice of a peculiar
nature. With eager cunning he lies in wait for painters and their
illnesses. More especially he loves to get foreign artists into his
toils; let them but eat an ounce or two of macaroni too much, or drink
a glass more Syracuse than is altogether good for them, he will afflict
them with first one and then the other disease, designating it by a
formidable name, and proceeding at once to cure them of it. He
generally bargains for a picture as the price of his attendance; and as
it is only specially obs