ine, nearly suffocated me.

Vitalis was not gone long. He soon returned, bringing with him a
gentleman wearing gold-rimmed spectacles--the doctor. Thinking that the
doctor might not put himself out for a monkey, Vitalis had not told him
who was his patient. When he saw me in bed, as red as a tomato, the
doctor put his hand on my forehead and said at once: "Congestion."

He shook his head with an air which augured nothing good.

Anxious to undeceive him for fear he might bleed me, I cried: "Why, I'm
not ill!"

"Not ill! Why, the child is delirious."

I lifted the quilt a bit and showed him Pretty-Heart, who had placed
his little arm round my neck.

"He's the one that's ill," I said.

"A monkey!" he exclaimed, turning angrily to Vitalis. "You've brought me
out in such weather to see a monkey!..."

Our master was a smart man who was not easily ruffled. Politely, and
with his grand air, he stopped the doctor. Then he explained the
situation, how he had been caught in a snowstorm, and how through fear
of the wolves Pretty-Heart had jumped up in an oak tree, where he had
been almost frozen to death. The patient might be only a monkey, but
what a genius! and what a friend and companion to us! How could we
confide such a wonderful, talented creature to the care of a simple
veterinary surgeon? Every one knew that the village veterinary was an
ass, while every one knew that doctors were scientific men, even in the
smallest village. If one rings at a door which bears a doctor's name,
one is sure to find a man of knowledge, and of generosity. Although the
monkey is only an animal, according to naturalists they are so near like
men that often an illness is treated the same for one as for the other.
And was it not interesting, from a scientific point of view, to study
how these illnesses differed. The doctor soon returned from the door
where he had been standing.

Pretty-Heart, who had probably guessed that this person wearing the
spectacles was a physician, again pushed out his arm.

"Look," cried Vitalis, "he wants you to bleed him."

That settled the doctor.

"Most interesting; a very interesting case," he murmured.

Alas! after examining him, the doctor told us that poor little
Pretty-Heart again had inflammation of the lungs. The doctor took his
arm and thrust a lancet into a vein without him making the slightest
moan. Pretty-Heart knew that this ought to cure him.

After the bleeding he required a good deal of