accounting for tastes. I know a man who got his spleen back from
the doctors and now keeps it in a bottle of alcohol on the what-not
in the parlor, as one of his most treasured possessions, and
sometimes shows it to visitors. He, however, is of a very saving
disposition.

Presently a lady secretary, who sat behind a roll-top desk in a
corner of the room, lifted a forefinger and silently beckoned me
to her side. I moved over and sat down by her; she took down my
name and my age and my weight and my height, and a number of other
interesting facts that will come in very handy should anyone ever
be moved to write a complete history of my early life. In common
with Doctor X she shared one attribute--she manifested a deep
curiosity regarding my forefathers--wanted to know all about them.
I felt that this was carrying the thing too far. I felt like
saying to her:

"Miss or madam, so far as I know there is nothing the matter with
my ancestors of the second and third generations back, except that
they are dead. I am not here to seek medical assistance for a
grandparent who succumbed to disappointment that time when Samuel
J. Tilden got counted out, or for a great-grandparent who entered
into Eternal Rest very unexpectedly and in a manner entirely
uncalled for as a result of being an innocent bystander in one of
those feuds that were so popular in my native state immediately
following the Mexican War. Leave my ancestors alone. There is
no need of your shaking my family tree in the belief that a few
overripe patients will fall out. I alone--I, me, myself--am the
present candidate!"