om was not an
hospital, and the company a collection of inquiring, medical students.
He was no worse that evening than he had been months before. But as he
had not seen most of them until now he probably thought that would be an
interesting opportunity to entertain them with a full and particular
account of "his complicated and long-continued afflictions."

As soon as Mr. Round had gone from the room a general rallying was the
result.

"The bore is gone, the valetudinarian has made his exit," exclaimed
Master Thompson, rather excited.

"O how pleased I am that he has left!" said Miss Young.

"So am I," responded Mr. Baker, "for he is one of the greatest plagues
that ever came near me. He is enough to give one the horrors, in
hearing so much of his sick talk."

"He was not satisfied in simply telling us that he was not very well;
but he must enter into a long and tedious detail of all his sicknesses,"
observed Mr. Wales.

"Well, poor man, he is to be pitied, after all. He suffers a great deal
more in his imagination from his sickness than we have in reality by
hearing him tell of it," said Miss Swaithe, a little sympathetically.

"I don't know about that," said young Spencer.

"Is Round gone, then?" asked Mr. Burr, a young man who had left the room
soon after he came in, having been annoyed with his valetudinarian
twaddle.

"He's no more," answered Miss Glass, in a tone somewhat ironically
funereal.

"Why, he's not dead, is he?" inquired Mr. Burr, quickly. "I should not
be surprised if he were; for, judging from what he said, one would
expect him to die any moment."

"O no; he's not the one to die yet, be sure of that; but he's gone for
the night," said Miss Glass.

"Thank goodness for his departure: I do not mean to another world, but
from this company. Yet where would be the harm in wishing him in heaven,
where none shall ever say they are sick?" said Mr. Ferriday.

"I see no harm in wishing a good thing like that," said Miss Bond--"a
good thing for him and other people too."

"Don't be so unkind and unmerciful," said Mrs. Grant.

"I do not think I am so," replied Miss Bond, "for if he was in heaven,
he would be cured of all his diseases; and he says he never shall be in
this world. And then other people would be happily exempted from the
misery of listening to his invalid tales every time they met with him."

"How his wife does to live with him I cannot tell," remarked Miss Bond.

"I suppose she