He folded his arms on the edge of the board and rested his forehead on them, while Frowenfeld sat down quickly on the opposite side, drew paper and pen across the table and wrote.
"Are you writing something, Professor ?" asked the old man, without stirring.

His staff tumbled to the floor.

The apothecary's answer was a low, preoccupied one.

Two or three times over he wrote and rejected what he had written.
Presently he pushed back his chair, came around the table, laid the writing he had made before the bowed head, sat down again and waited.
After a long time the old man looked up, trying in vain to conceal his anguish under a smile.
"I have a sad headache." He cast his eyes over the table and took mechanically the pen which Frowenfeld extended toward him.
"What can I do for you, Professor?
Sign something?
There is nothing I would not do for Professor Frowenfeld.

What have you written, eh ?" He felt helplessly for his spectacles.
Frowenfeld read: "_Mr.Sylvestre Grandissime: I spoke in haste_." He felt himself tremble as he read.