"Take care he does not hurt his
head against the bed; and, by the by, doctor, do you remember the test
we applied in Smith's case? Just tickle the soles of his feet, and see
if it will cause those backward spasms of the head."

The aid obeyed him, and, very naturally, I jerked my head backwards as
hard as I could.

"That will answer," said the surgeon, to my horror. "A clever rogue.
Send him to the guard-house when he gets over it."

"Happy had I been if my ill-luck had ended here; but, as I crossed the
yard, an officer stopped me. To my disgust it was the captain of my old
Rhode Island company.

"Halloa!" said he; "keep that fellow safe. I know him."

To cut short a long story; I was tried, convicted, and forced to refund
the Rhode Island bounty, for by ill luck they found my bank-book among
my papers. I was finally sent to Fort Mifflin for a year, and kept at
hard labor, handling and carrying shot, policing the ground, picking up
cigar-stumps, and other like unpleasant occupations.

Upon my release, I went at once to Boston, where I had about two
thousand dollars in bank. I spent nearly all of the latter sum before I
could prevail upon myself to settle down to some mode of making a
livelihood; and I was about to engage in business as a vender of lottery
policies, when I first began to feel a strange sense of lassitude, which
soon increased so as quite to disable me from work of any kind. Month
after month passed away, while my money lessened, and this terrible
sense of weariness still went on from bad to worse. At last one day,
after nearly a year had elapsed, I perceived on my face a large brown
patch of color, in consequence of which I went in some alarm to consult
a well-known physician. He asked me a multitude of tiresome questions,
and at last wrote off a prescription, which I immediately read. It was a
preparation of iron.

"What do you think," said I, "is the matter with me, doctor?"

"I am afraid," said he, "that you have a very serious trouble,--what we
call Addison's disease."

"What's that?" said I.

"I do not think you would comprehend it," he replied. "It is an
affection of the supra-renal capsules."

I dimly remembered that there were such organs, and that nobody knew
what they were meant for. It seemed the doctors had found a use for them
at last.

"Is it a dangerous disease?" I said.

"I fear so," he answered.

"Don't you know," I asked, "what's the truth about it?"

"Well," he ret