I844-54- ILLNESSES HUMOROUSLY DESCRIBED. 251 



he sometimes spoke of himself as " copiously illustrated 

 with cuts." 



His sister Jeanie is told, " Give a rap on the table when 

 you get this (that's the way spirits take to communicate 

 thought), and venerate the postman who gave two (was it ?) 

 raps when he handed it in. 



" I have been vexed with the cares that belong to a land- 

 lord. Into an apartment in my possession, which I intended 

 to shut up, indeed to fill up, a rogue found his way, bent on 

 making, not paying a rent. He would not pay the taxes ; on 

 the other hand, he taxed me. He would not rest even at 

 night, but compelled me to get up at any hour to look after 

 him. I besought him at least not to disturb me during 

 lecture, but the rogue declared that he hated fumes, and 

 would interrupt me in the midst of the most angelic 

 eloquence. His Christian name I don't know (indeed he 

 is not a Christian). His surname is Bronkeetis. He comes 

 of an old family, and cheats people into the notion that 

 cough is a simple word, which will get simpler by use, as 

 at last it does by changing its spelling, and ending in coffin. 

 People don't like to spell it that way, but all the folks who 

 begin with coughing as the right fashion, end with the other 

 version of it. The Homoeopathists, for example, advise the 

 administration to sick people of cocoa, because they are 

 afraid to recommend coughy, which the honest grocers spell 

 coffee." At another time he speaks of his "everlasting 

 cough, a Malakhoff which neither French nor English are 

 likely to take." 1 A coughing performance, in which he is en- 

 gaged at intervals, through the night as well as day, " excites/' 

 he says, " so much applause, that it is invariably encored." 



Excitable temperaments like his cannot but have times 



1 Written during the siege of Sebastopol, with its Malakhoff tower yet 

 unattacked. 



