ice? Why, to sit on the terrace, satisfying
yourself with the fine prospect, and passing your eye over the
beauties of the garden below, without taking one step to descend and
walk about in them.

On the contrary, dear sir, you call for tea and the chess-board; and
lo! you are occupied in your seat till nine o'clock, and that besides
two hours' play after dinner; and then, instead of walking home, which
would have bestirred you a little, you step into your carriage. How
absurd to suppose that all this carelessness can be reconcilable with
health, without my interposition!

_Franklin._ I am convinced now of the justness of Poor Richard's
remark that "Our debts and our sins are always greater than we think
for."

_Gout._ So it is. You philosophers are sages in your maxims, and fools
in your conduct.

_Franklin._ But do you charge, among my crimes, that I return in a
carriage from Mr. Brillon's?

_Gout._ Certainly; for having been seated all the while, you can not
object the fatigue of the day, and can not want, therefore, the
relief of a carriage.

_Franklin._ What, then, would you have me do with my carriage?

_Gout._ Burn it, if you choose; you would at least get heat out of it
once in this way, or, if you dislike that proposal, here's another for
you; observe the poor peasants, who work in the vineyards and grounds
about the villages of Passy, Auteuil, Chaillot, etc.; you may find
every day, among these deserving creatures, four or five old men and
women, bent and perhaps crippled by weight of years and too long and
too great labor. After a most fatiguing day, these people have to
trudge a mile or two to their smoky huts. Order your coachman to set
them down. This is an act that will be good for your soul; and, at the
same time, after your visit to the Brillons, if you return on foot,
that will be good for your body.

_Franklin._ Ah! how tiresome you are!

_Gout._ Well, then, to my office; it should not be forgotten that I am
your physician. There.

_Franklin._ Ohhh! what a devil of a physician!

_Gout._ How ungrateful you are to say so! Is it not I who, in the
character of your physician, have saved you from the palsy, dropsy and
apoplexy? one or other of which would have done for you long ago but
for me.

_Franklin._ I submit, and thank you for the past, but entreat the
discontinuance of your visits for the future; for, in my mind, one had
better die than be cured so dolefully. Permit me just to hint