a little. Next he took
my wrist; but instead of counting my pulse in the old-fashioned way,
he fastened a machine to it that marked all the beats on a sheet of
paper,--for all the world like a scale of the heights of mountains, say
from Mount Tom up to Chimborazo and then down again, and up again, and
so on. In the mean time he asked me all sorts of questions about myself
and all my relatives, whether we had been subject to this and that
malady, until I felt as if we must some of us have had more or less of
them, and could not feel quite sure whether Elephantiasis and Beriberi
and Progressive Locomotor Ataxy did not run in the family.

After all this overhauling of myself and my history, he paused and
looked puzzled. Something was suggested about what he called an
"exploratory puncture." This I at once declined, with thanks. Suddenly a
thought struck him. He looked still more closely at the discoloration I
have spoken of.

--Looks like--I declare it reminds me of--very rare! very curious! It
would be strange if my first case--of this kind--should be one of our
boarders!

What kind of a case do you call it?--I said, with a sort of feeling that
he could inflict a severe or a light malady on me, as if he were a judge
passing sentence.

--The color reminds me,--said Dr. B. Franklin,--of what I have seen in a
case of Addison's Disease, Morbus Addisonii.

--But my habits are quite regular,--I said; for I remembered that the
distinguished essayist was too fond of his brandy and water, and
I confess that the thought was not pleasant to me of following Dr.
Johnson's advice, with the slight variation of giving my days and my
nights to trying on the favorite maladies of Addison.

--Temperance people are subject to it!--exclaimed Dr. Benjamin, almost
exultingly, I thought.

--But I had the impression that the author of the Spectator was
afflicted with a dropsy, or some such inflated malady, to which persons
of sedentary and bibacious habits are liable. [A literary swell,--I
thought to myself, but I did not say it. I felt too serious.]

--The author of the Spectator!--cried out Dr. Benjamin,--I mean the
celebrated Dr. Addison, inventor, I would say discoverer, of the
wonderful new disease called after him.

--And what may this valuable invention or discovery consist in?--I
asked, for I was curious to know the nature of the gift which this
benefactor of the race had bestowed upon us.

--A most interesting affection, and