s is the reason these confounded
doctors will mention their guesses about "a case," as they call it, and
all its conceivable possibilities, out loud before their patients? I
don't suppose there is anything in all this nonsense about "Addison's
Disease," but I wish he hadn't spoken of that very interesting ailment,
and I should feel a little easier if that discoloration would leave my
forehead. I will ask the Landlady about it,--these old women often know
more than the young doctors just come home with long names for everything
they don't know how to cure. But the name of this complaint sets me
thinking. Bronzed skin! What an odd idea! Wonder if it spreads all
over one. That would be picturesque and pleasant, now, wouldn't it? To
be made a living statue of,--nothing to do but strike an attitude. Arm
up--so--like the one in the Garden. John of Bologna's Mercury--thus on
one foot. Needy knife-grinder in the Tribune at Florence. No, not
"needy," come to think of it. Marcus Aurelius on horseback. Query. Are
horses subject to the Morbus Addisonii? Advertise for a bronzed living
horse--Lyceum invitations and engagements--bronze versus brass.---What 's
the use in being frightened? Bet it was a bump. Pretty certain I bumped
my forehead against something. Never heard of a bronzed man before.
Have seen white men, black men, red men, yellow men, two or three blue
men, stained with doctor's stuff; some green ones, from the country; but
never a bronzed man. Poh, poh! Sure it was a bump. Ask Landlady to look
at it.

--Landlady did look at it. Said it was a bump, and no mistake.
Recommended a piece of brown paper dipped in vinegar. Made the house
smell as if it were in quarantine for the plague from Smyrna, but
discoloration soon disappeared,--so I did not become a bronzed man after
all,--hope I never shall while I am alive. Should n't mind being done in
bronze after I was dead. On second thoughts not so clear about it,
remembering how some of them look that we have got stuck up in public;
think I had rather go down to posterity in an Ethiopian Minstrel
portrait, like our friend's the other day.

--You were kind enough to say, I remarked to the Master, that you read my
poems and liked them. Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what
it is you like about them?

The Master harpooned a breakfast-roll and held it up before me.--Will you
tell me,--he said,--why you like that breakfast-roll?--I suppose he
tho