pussy-footed male attendant, in a livery that made him look like a
cross between a headwaiter and an undertaker's assistant, escorted me
through an anteroom into a reception-room, where a considerable number
of well-dressed men and women were sitting about in strained attitudes,
pretending to read magazines while they waited their turns, but in
reality furtively watching one another.

I sat down in a convenient chair, adhering fast to my hat and my
umbrella. They were the only friends I had there and I was determined
not to lose them without a struggle. On the wall were many colored
charts showing various portions of the human anatomy and what ailed
them. Directly in front of me was a very thrilling illustration,
evidently copied from an oil painting, of a liver in a bad state of
repair. I said to myself that if I had a liver like that one I should
keep it hidden from the public eye--I would never permit it to sit for
it's portrait. Still, there is no accounting for tastes. I know a man
who got his spleen back from the doctors and now keeps it in a bottle
of alcohol on the what-not in the parlor, as one of his most treasured
possessions, and sometimes shows it to visitors. He, however, is of a
very saving disposition.

Presently a lady secretary, who sat behind a roll-top desk in a corner
of the room, lifted a forefinger and silently beckoned me to her side. I
moved over and sat down by her; she took down my name and my age and my
weight and my height, and a number of other interesting facts that
will come in very handy should anyone ever be moved to write a complete
history of my early life. In common with Doctor X she shared
one attribute--she manifested a deep curiosity regarding my
forefathers--wanted to know all about them. I felt that this was
carrying the thing too far. I felt like saying to her:

"Miss or madam, so far as I know there is nothing the matter with my
ancestors of the second and third generations back, except that they
are dead. I am not here to seek medical assistance for a grandparent who
succumbed to disappointment that time when Samuel J. Tilden got counted
out, or for a great-grandparent who entered into Eternal Rest very
unexpectedly and in a manner entirely uncalled for as a result of being
an innocent bystander in one of those feuds that were so popular in my
native state immediately following the Mexican War. Leave my ancestors
alone. There is no need of your shaking my family tree in th