aeus was a physician of renown, but not good company. He was
one-eyed, sickly, lame in one foot, and a gloomy hypochondriac to
boot. Being unable to get around to his patients, he always had one
or two students to do the running for him and to learn as best they
might, in doing it. Carl found a young German installed there as the
doctor's right hand. He also found a library full of books on
botany, a veritable heaven for him. But the gate was shut against
him; the doctor had the key, and he saw nothing in the country lad
but a needy student of no account. Perhaps the Rector had passed the
head-master's letter along. However, love laughs at locksmiths, and
Carl Linnaeus was hopelessly in love with his flowers. He got on the
right side of the German by helping him over some hard stiles in the
_materia medica_. In return, his fellow student brought him books
out of the library when the doctor had gone to bed, and Carl sat up
studying the big tomes till early cockcrow. Before the house
stirred, the books were back on their shelves, the door locked, and
no one was the wiser.

No one except the doctor's old mother, whose room was across the
yard. She did not sleep well, and all night she saw the window
lighted in her neighbor's room. She told the doctor that Carl
Linnaeus fell asleep with the candle burning every single night, and
sometime he would upset it and they would all be burned in their
beds. The doctor nodded grimly; he knew the young scamps. No doubt
they both sat up playing cards till dawn; but he would teach them.
And the very next morning, at two o'clock, up he stumped on his lame
foot to Carl's room, in which there was light, sure enough, and went
in without knocking.

Carl was so deep in his work that he did not hear him at all, and
the doctor stole up unperceived and looked over his shoulder. There
lay his precious books, which he thought safely locked in the
library, spread out before him, and his pupil was taking notes and
copying drawings as if his life depended upon it. He gave a great
start when Dr. Stobaeus demanded what he was doing, but owned up
frankly, while the doctor frowned and turned over his notes, leaf by
leaf.

"Go to bed and sleep like other people," he said gruffly, yet
kindly, when he had heard it all, "and hereafter study in the
daytime;" and he not only gave him a key to his library, but took
him to his own table after that. Up till then Carl had merely been a
lodger in the house.