son'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 rare, too. Allow me to look closely
at that discoloration once more for a moment. Cutis cenea, bronze skin,
they call it sometimes--extraordinary pigmentation--a little more to the
light, if you please--ah! now I get the bronze coloring admirably,
beautifully! Would you have any objection to showing your case to the
Societies of Medical Improvement and Medical Observation?

[--My case! O dear!] May I ask if any vital organ is commonly involved
in this interesting complaint?--I said, faintly.

--Well, sir,--the young Doctor replied,--there is an organ which is
--sometimes--a little touched, I may say; a very curious and ingenious
little organ or pair of organs. Did you ever hear of the Capsulae,
Suprarenales?

--No,--said I,--is it a mortal complaint?--I ought to have known better
than to ask such a question, but I was getting nervous and thinking about
all sorts of horrid maladies people are liable to, with horrid names to
match.

--It is n't a complaint,--I mean they are not a complaint,--they are two
small organs, as I said, inside of you, and nobody knows what is the use
of them. The most curious thing is that when anything is the matter with
them you turn of the color of bronze. After all, I didn't mean to say I
believed it was Morbus Addisonii; I only thought of that when I saw the
discoloration.

So he gave me a recipe, which I took care to put where it could do no
hurt to anybody, and I paid him his fee (which he took with the air of a
man in the receipt of a great income) and said Good-morning.

--What in the name of a thousand diablo