dge for himself when to intervene to change the
order of conversation; no, of course he isn't. Somebody must give him
a hint. Somebody.--Who is it? I suspect Dr. B. Franklin. He looks too
knowing. There is certainly a trick somewhere. Why, a day or two ago I
was myself discoursing, with considerable effect, as I thought, on some
of the new aspects of humanity, when I was struck full on the cheek by
one of these little pellets, and there was such a confounded laugh that
I had to wind up and leave off with a preposition instead of a good
mouthful of polysyllables. I have watched our young Doctor, however, and
have been entirely unable to detect any signs of communication between
him and this audacious child, who is like to become a power among us,
for that popgun is fatal to any talker who is hit by its pellet. I have
suspected a foot under the table as the prompter, but I have been unable
to detect the slightest movement or look as if he were making one,
on the part of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. I cannot help thinking of the
flappers in Swift's Laputa, only they gave one a hint when to speak and
another a hint to listen, whereas the popgun says unmistakably, "Shut
up!"

--I should be sorry to lose my confidence in Dr. B. Franklin, who seems
very much devoted to his business, and whom I mean to consult about
some small symptoms I have had lately. Perhaps it is coming to a new
boarding-house. The young people who come into Paris from the provinces
are very apt--so I have been told by one that knows--to have an attack
of typhoid fever a few weeks or months after their arrival. I have not
been long enough at this table to get well acclimated; perhaps that is
it. Boarding-House Fever. Something like horse-ail, very likely,--horses
get it, you know, when they are brought to city stables. A little "off
my feed," as Hiram Woodruff would say. A queer discoloration about my
forehead. Query, a bump? Cannot remember any. Might have got it against
bedpost or something while asleep. Very unpleasant to look so. I wonder
how my portrait would look, if anybody should take it now! I hope not
quite so badly as one I saw the other day, which I took for the end man
of the Ethiopian Serenaders, or some traveller who had been exploring
the sources of the Niger, until I read the name at the bottom and found
it was a face I knew as well as my own.

I must consult somebody, and it is nothing more than fair to give our
young Doctor a chance. Here goe