dryly replied, "Oh, I suppose so--as a matter of course." It was certainly a strange coincidence that I left Paris in Forty-eight as a Revolutionary _suspect_, and re-entered it in 1870 in very nearly the same capacity. We found agreeable lodgings at the Rond Point of the Champs Elysees. The day after our arrival I determined to arrange the terms of living with our landlord. He and his wife had the reputation of being fearful screws in their "items." So he, thinking I was a newly arrived and perfectly ignorant American, began to draw the toils, and enumerate so much for the rooms, so much for every towel, so much, I believe, for salt and every spoon and fork. I asked him how much he would charge for everything in the lump. He replied, "_Mais_, _Monsieur_, _nous ne faisons pas jamais comme cela a Paris_." Out of all patience, I burst out into vernacular: "_Sacre nom de Dieu et mille tonnerres_, _vieux galopin_! you dare to tell _me_, a _vieux carabin du Quartier Latin_, that you cannot make arrangements! _Et depuisse-quand_, _s'il vous plait_?" {372} He stared at me in blank amazement, and then said with a smile: "_Tiens_! _Monsieur est donc de nous_!" "That I am," I replied, and we at once made a satisfactory compromise. We had pleasant friends, and saw the sights and shopped; but I began to feel in Paris for the first time that the dreaded break-down or collapse which I had long apprehended was coming over me. There was a very clever surgeon and physician named Laborde, who was called Nelaton's right-hand man. I met him several times, and he observed to a mutual friend that I was evidently suffering seriously from threatening nervous symptoms, and that he would like to attend me. He did so, and gave me daily a teaspoonful of bromide of potassium. This gave me sleep and appetite; but, after some weeks or months, the result was a settled, mild melancholy and tendency to rest. In fact, it was nearly eighteen months before I recovered so that I could write or work, and _live_ as of old. I had inherited from both parents, and suffered all my life fearfully at intervals, from brachycephalic or dorsal neuralgia. Dr. Laborde made short work of this by giving me appallingly strong doses of _tincture of aconite and sulphate of quinine_. Chemists have often been amazed at the prescription. But in due time the trouble quite disappeared, and I now, _laus Deo_! very rarely ever have a touch of it. As many persons suffer terribly from this disorder, which is an _aching_ in the back of the head and neck accompanied by "sick headache," I give the ingredients of the cure; the proper quantity must be determined by the physician. {373}