cornucopia with a tickling sensation
in the diaphragm?" he asked.

"Right again," I whispered.

"Do the joints feel sore and pinched like a pool-room?" he said.

"Right!"

"Does your tongue feel rare and high-priced like a porterhouse
steak at a summer resort?"

"It do!"

"Do you feel a spasmodic fluttering in the concertina?"

"Yes!"

"Have you a sort of nervous hesitation in your hunger and does
everything you eat taste like an impossible sandwich?"

"Keno!"

"Does your nerve centre tinkle-tinkle like a breakfast bell?"

"Right again!"

"Have you a feeling that the germs have attacked your Adam's apple
and that there won't be any core?"

"Yes!"

"When you look at the wall paper does your brain do a sort of
loop-the-loop and cause you to meld 100 aces or double pinochle?"

"Yes, and 80 kings, too!"

"Do you feel a slight palpitation of the membrane of the Colorado
madura and is there a confused murmur in your brain like the sound
of a hard working gas meter?"

"You've got me sized good and plenty, Doc!"

"Do you have insomnia, nightmare, loss of appetite, chills and
fever and concealed respiration in the carolina perfecto?"

"That's the idea, Doc."

"When you lie on your right side do you have an impulse to turn
over on your left side, and when you turn over on your left side do
you feel an impulse to jump out of bed and throw stones at a
policeman?"

"There isn't anything you can mention, Doc, that I haven't got!"

"Ah!" said the doctor; "then that settles it."

"Tell me the truth, Doctor!" I groaned; "what is it, bubonic
plague?"

"You have something worse--you have the grip," he whispered gently.
"You see I tried hard to mention some symptom which you didn't
have, but you had them all, and the grip is the only disease in the
world which makes a specialty of having every symptom known to
medical jurisprudence."

Then the doctor got busy with the pencil gag and left me enough
prescriptions to keep the druggist in pocket money throughout the
summer.

[Illustration: Enough prescriptions to keep the druggist in pocket
money throughout the summer.]

Later my wife came in and asked me how I felt, and when I began to
discourse amiably about undertakers she put up a howl that brought
the rest of the family around the bedside on a hurry call.

When I told them I had the grip each and every member of the
household from Uncle Peter down to the cook began to suggest
remedies, and if I h