—–­And what may this valuable invention or discovery consist in?—­I asked, for I was curious to know the nature of the gift which this benefactor of the race had bestowed upon us.

—­A most interesting affection, and rare, too.  Allow me to look closely at that discoloration once more for a moment.  Cutis cenea, bronze skin, they call it sometimes—­extraordinary pigmentation—­a little more to the light, if you please—­ah! now I get the bronze coloring admirably, beautifully!  Would you have any objection to showing your case to the Societies of Medical Improvement and Medical Observation?

[—­My case!  O dear!] May I ask if any vital organ is commonly involved in this interesting complaint?—­I said, faintly.

—­Well, sir,—­the young Doctor replied,—­there is an organ which is —­sometimes—­a little touched, I may say; a very curious and ingenious little organ or pair of organs.  Did you ever hear of the Capsulae, Suprarenales?

—­No,—­said I,—­is it a mortal complaint?—­I ought to have known better than to ask such a question, but I was getting nervous and thinking about all sorts of horrid maladies people are liable to, with horrid names to match.

—­It is n’t a complaint,—­I mean they are not a complaint,—­they are two small organs, as I said, inside of you, and nobody knows what is the use of them.  The most curious thing is that when anything is the matter with them you turn of the color of bronze.  After all, I didn’t mean to say I believed it was Morbus Addisonii; I only thought of that when I saw the discoloration.

So he gave me a recipe, which I took care to put where it could do no hurt to anybody, and I paid him his fee (which he took with the air of a man in the receipt of a great income) and said Good-morning.

—­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