Ovid had promised to return to Carmina in a minute.

The minutes passed, and still Doctor Benjulia held him in talk.
Now that he was no longer seeking amusement, in his own dreary way, by mystifying Zo, the lines seemed to harden in the doctor's fleshless face.

A scrupulously polite man, he was always cold in his politeness.
He waited to have his hand shaken, and waited to be spoken to.

And yet, on this occasion, he had something to say.

When Ovid opened the conversation, he changed the subject directly.
"Benjulia! what brings You to the Zoological Gardens ?" "One of the monkeys has got brain disease; and they fancy I might like to see the beast before they kill him.