Another time, when the lady just mentioned was, after a shower of rain, walking up the hill to Diodati, Lord Byron, who saw her from his balcony where he was standing with Polidori, said to the latter, “Now, you who wish to be gallant ought to jump down this small height, and offer your arm.”  Polidori chose the easiest part of the declivity, and leaped;—­but the ground being wet, his foot slipped, and he sprained his ankle.[117] Lord Byron instantly helped to carry him in and procure cold water for the foot; and, after he was laid on the sofa, perceiving that he was uneasy, went up stairs himself (an exertion which his lameness made painful and disagreeable) to fetch a pillow for him.  “Well, I did not believe you had so much feeling,” was Polidori’s gracious remark, which, it may be supposed, not a little clouded the noble poet’s brow.

A dialogue which Lord Byron himself used to mention as having taken place between them during their journey on the Rhine, is amusingly characteristic of both the persons concerned.  “After all,” said the physician, “what is there you can do that I cannot?”—­“Why, since you force me to say,” answered the other, “I think there are three things I can do which you cannot.”  Polidori defied him to name them.  “I can,” said Lord Byron, “swim across that river—­I can snuff out that candle with a pistol-shot at the distance of twenty paces—­and I have written a poem[118] of which 14,000 copies were sold in one day.”

The jealous pique of the Doctor against Shelley was constantly breaking out; and on the occasion of some victory which the latter had gained over him in a sailing-match, he took it into his head that his antagonist had treated him with contempt; and went so far, in consequence, notwithstanding Shelley’s known sentiments against duelling, as to proffer him a sort of challenge, at which Shelley, as might be expected, only laughed.  Lord Byron, however, fearing that the vivacious physician might still further take advantage of this peculiarity of his friend, said to him, “Recollect, that though Shelley has some scruples about duelling, I have none; and shall be, at all times, ready to take his place.”

At Diodati, his life was passed in the same regular round of habits and occupations into which, when left to himself, he always naturally fell; a late breakfast, then a visit to the Shelleys’ cottage and an excursion on the Lake;—­at five, dinner[119] (when he usually preferred being alone), and then, if the weather permitted, an excursion again.  He and Shelley had joined in purchasing a boat, for which they gave twenty-five louis,—­a small sailing vessel, fitted to stand the usual squalls of the climate, and, at that time, the only keeled boat on the Lake.  When the weather did not allow of their excursions after dinner,—­an occurrence not unfrequent during this very wet summer,—­the inmates of the cottage passed their evenings at Diodati, and, when the rain rendered it inconvenient for them to return home, remained there to sleep.  “We often,” says one, who was not the least ornamental of the party, “sat up in conversation till the morning light.  There was never any lack of subjects, and, grave or gay, we were always interested.”