--What in the name of a thousand diablos is the reason these confounded doctors will mention their guesses about “a case,” as they call it, and all its conceivable possibilities, out loud before their patients? I don't suppose there is anything in all this nonsense about “Addison's Disease,” but I wish he hadn't spoken of that very interesting ailment, and I should feel a little easier if that discoloration would leave my forehead. I will ask the Landlady about it,--these old women often know more than the young doctors just come home with long names for everything they don't know how to cure. But the name of this complaint sets me thinking. Bronzed skin! What an odd idea! Wonder if it spreads all over one. That would be picturesque and pleasant, now, wouldn't it? To be made a living statue of,--nothing to do but strike an attitude. Arm up--so--like the one in the Garden. John of Bologna's Mercury--thus on one foot. Needy knife-grinder in the Tribune at Florence. No, not “needy,” come to think of it. Marcus Aurelius on horseback. Query. Are horses subject to the Morbus Addisonii? Advertise for a bronzed living horse--Lyceum invitations and engagements--bronze versus brass.--What 's the use in being frightened? Bet it was a bump. Pretty certain I bumped my forehead against something. Never heard of a bronzed man before. Have seen white men, black men, red men, yellow men, two or three blue men, stained with doctor's stuff; some green ones, from the country; but never a bronzed man. Poh, poh! Sure it was a bump. Ask Landlady to look at it. --Landlady did look at it. Said it was a bump, and no mistake. Recommended a piece of brown paper dipped in vinegar. Made the house smell as if it were in quarantine for the plague from Smyrna, but discoloration soon disappeared,--so I did not become a bronzed man after all,--hope I never shall while I am alive. Should n't mind being done in bronze after I was dead. On second thoughts not so clear about it, remembering how some of them look that we have got stuck up in public; think I had rather go down to posterity in an Ethiopian Minstrel portrait, like our friend's the other day. --You were kind enough to say, I remarked to the Master, that you read my poems and liked them. Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what it is you like about them? The Master harpooned a breakfast-roll and held it up before me.--Will you tell me,--he said,--why you like that breakfast-roll?--I suppose he thought that would stop my mouth in two senses. But he was mistaken. --To be sure I will,--said I.--First, I like its mechanical consistency; brittle externally,--that is for the teeth, which want resistance to be overcome; soft, spongy, well tempered and flavored internally, that is for the organ of taste; wholesome, nutritious,--that is for the internal surfaces and the system generally. --Good,--said the Master, and laughed a hearty terrestrial laugh.