brought a guest, the head of the health commission. That gentleman expressed his very warm pleasure at meeting me and told me that he and his fellow board members would be delighted to have my assistance in promoting a local health week.
"We are having a mass meeting at the auditorium next week," he explained. "We would regard it as a great favor if you would address the audience."
"What would you have me say?" I asked, having no pet health rules whatever of my own, beyond a normal moderation in all things.
"Oh, anything along the lines of what habits to cultivate, what to eschew to promote a long life," he said. "It is not alone what you might say, but the example of your presence."
And in his enthusiasm he added, "You know, Mr. Hopper, that you have reached the age when most men are thinking of death."
I am not, despite the New Jersey gentleman's impression, a contemporary of either Junius Brutus Booth or Jenny Lind. These reminiscences may suggest that I am in my anecdotage, but I am not yet in my dotage. Yet for a moment one hot August night when I was fifteen years or so younger than I am now,
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