arose to return to the globe for the company.

"Will you accompany us to the ship?" asked Dr. Jones.

"I thank you, but I am a victim of sciatic rheumatism, and can do but
little walking," returned the Count. "I hope, however, before you leave
us, to be able to inspect your wonderful air-ship."

"Is your sciatica of long standing?" inquired Dr. Jones, all the
instincts of a good physician being aroused at the presence of
suffering; and running over in his mind a list of remedies from force of
long habit.

"About three years. I contracted it from getting wet when warm. I am
incurable, and must grin and bear to the end."

"Do you feel better quiet, or when moving about?"

"Oh! I must move about. I usually put in hours at night hobbling up and
down my room."

"The bed feels so hard that you cannot find an easy spot to lie on. You
are always worse before storms. After sitting a little while you stiffen
up, feeling much better after moving about. The tendons of your legs
have a drawing sensation, and feel as if too short. There is more or
less of numbness and paralysis, and a wooden sort of feeling of the leg
when walking. You also have lightning-like shocks of pain through the
limb, now and then. Your attacks come on every few weeks, and it is the
left limb that is affected. You can be cured."

The doctor rattled these symptoms off with great volubility. The Count
looked at him with open-eyed wonder. The professor was not less
astonished at the positiveness with which Dr. Jones thus detailed the
Count's symptoms without any previous knowledge of the case.

"Whether you be angel or devil, I do not know; but certain it is that
you have told my symptoms better than I could have done myself. But you
make a bold assertion when you say that I can be cured. Do you know,
man, that I have had the best advice in Europe, and have spent a fortune
seeking relief?"

"Are you taking medicine now, sir?"

"No. I have thrown physic to the dogs, and may God have mercy on the
dogs. I am thoroughly disgusted with physic and physicians. And why
should I not be? Several years since, I saw my wife die of pulmonary
consumption. And now my only child lies in a chamber above, well
advanced in the same terrible, wholly incurable disease. As if this were
not enough, I myself am suffering the pangs of h--l with a lingering,
incurable complaint. Why shouldn't I detest the whole lying, infernal
business?" he roared, striking the floor savagel