r-cure; keep strictly to the diet, a list of which I now
hand you. At the expiration of that time you will be a strong man.
Thank you--my secretary will send you a receipt.'

"Well, I went to Stuckbad--crawled really--put up at the hotel and sent
for the resident doctor, Professor Ozzenbach, Member of the Board of
Pharmacy of Berlin, Specialist on Nutrition, Fellow of the Royal
Society of Bacteriologists, President of the Vienna Association of
Physiological Research--that kind of man. He looked me all over and
shook his head. He spoke broken English--badly.

"'Who has dreated you, may I ask, Meester Boblin?'

"'Doctor Stuffen, at Fizzenbad.'

"'Ah, yes, a fery goot man, but a leedle de times behindt. Vat did you
eat?'

"I handed him the list.

"'No vonder dot you are thin, my frent--yoost as I oxpected--dis ees de
olt deory of broteids. Dot is all oxbloded now. Eef you haf stay anuder
mont you vould be dead. Everyting dot he has dold you vas yoost de
udder way; no bread, no meelk, no vegebubbles--noddings of dis, not von
leedle bit. I vill make von leest--come to-morrow.'"

"Did you go, Joppy?" inquired Stebbins.

"DID _I_ GO? Yes, back to the depot and on to Cologne. That night I ate
two plates of sauerkraut, a slice of pork and a piece of cheese the
size of my hand; slept like a top."

"So the proteids and carbohydrates didn't do your epigastric any good,
old chap," remarked Pudfut in an effort to relieve the gloom.

"Proteids, carbohydrates and my epigastric be damned," exploded Joplin.
"On your feet, boys, all of you. Here's to the food of our fathers,
with every man a full plate. And here's to dear old Marny, the human
kangaroo. May his appetite never fail and his paunch never shrink!"

MISS BUFFUM'S NEW BOARDER

I

He was seated near the top end of Miss Buffum's table when I first saw
his good-natured face with its twinkling eyes, high cheekbones and
broad, white forehead in strong contrast to the wizened, almost sour,
visage of our landlady. Up to the time of his coming every one had
avoided that end, or had gradually shifted his seat, gravitating slowly
toward the bottom, where the bank clerk, the college professor and I
hobnobbed over our soup and boiled mutton.

It was his laugh that attracted my attention--the first that had come
from the upper end of the table in the memory of the oldest boarder.
Men talk of the first kiss, the first baby, the first bluebird in the
spring, but to me