But this is not all. After the affable stranger has asked all the ridiculous questions he can think of, he commences, without being solicited for a narrative, and entertains (?) me with a glowing (?) account of the army experience of one of _his_ relatives—his son, nephew, cousin, or wife’s uncle’s brother’s cousin, and I must patiently listen. He, poor fellow, goes the story, was wounded, too: arm or leg nearly torn off, barely hanging by a bit of the hide. Doctors wanted to carve it off. He wouldn’t let ’em. But they said he’d die unless his limb was amputated. Said he’d die all in one piece, then, and save the trouble of digging two graves: wasn’t going to die a piece at a time. Doctors said they knew best and limb _must_ come off. “Hero” declared they didn’t, and that it shouldn’t be cut off, and, moreover, he’d shoot ’em if they tried it. Hence, limb left on. Patient got well, although Doctors said wouldn’t live a day, “and to-day,” continues the narrator, “the limb is sounder and stronger than before it was wounded.” I have heard ten thousand such stories told of persons I never knew, never saw, and never heard of, and never wished to hear of. Yet I had to sit and listen. How interesting!!! Nor is this all. I occasionally meet with one who, in addition to all this, asks a few questions and makes a few remarks too ridiculous to be believed. Once, a gentleman who had been quizzing me for half-an-hour in a street-car, gravely asked: “Don’t you think there are a great many _unnecessary_ legs taken off, by army surgeons?” He meant, I suppose, “legs taken off unnecessarily,” and I thought so; but he had been boring me till I felt pale and looked like fainting, and I replied: “Yes. I think that, strictly speaking, all that are taken off are unnecessary, for those who lose them manage to live without them.” He didn’t bother me any more. On a similar occasion, a gentleman asked: “Do you ever go away and forget your crutch?” When too late, he perceived how ridiculous the question was; but I gravely replied: “Yes, I once went away and left it standing in the corner of a restaurant. I went several hundred yards before I missed it; and I then had a deuce of a time getting back to it.” Another once thoughtfully asked: “Now, suppose you had lost your left arm instead of your left leg, where would you have placed your crutch?” He never considered that in such a case it would not have been necessary for me to use a crutch at all. “Then,” I replied, “I would have used the crutch under the right shoulder, and a cane in my left hand.” Another idiot, one day, after having asked the usual questions and entertained me with the usual incidents, consolingly remarked: “Well, you don’t have to pay so much for shoes.” “I never pay any thing for shoes,” I replied. “For boots then,” he suggested, with a complacent smile. “No, nor for boots either,” I replied. “Why so?” he asked, with some curiosity. “I buy neither boots nor shoes.” “How then?”