The doctor began quietly enough. He asked, as I had anticipated, after the health of my relations. I said that they were very fit; and not to be outdone in politeness, expressed the hope that his people, too, were keeping well in this trying weather. He wondered if I drank much. I said, "Oh, well, perhaps I will," with an apologetic smile, and looked round for the sideboard. Unfortunately he did not pursue the matter....
"And now," he said, after the hundredth question, "I should like to look at your chest."
I had seen it coming for some time. In vain I had tried to turn the conversation—to lead him back to the subject of drinks or my relations. It was no good. He was evidently determined to see my chest. Nothing could move him from his resolve.
Trembling, I prepared for the encounter. What terrible disease was he going to discover?
He began by tapping me briskly all over in a series of double-knocks. For the most part one double-knock at any point appeared to satisfy him, but occasionally there would be no answer and he would knock again. At one spot he knocked four times before he could make himself heard.
"This," I said to myself at the third knock, "has torn it. I shall be ploughed," and I sent an urgent message to my chest. "For 'eving's sake do something, you fool. Can't you hear the gentleman?" I suppose that roused it, for at the next knock he passed on to an adjacent spot....
"Um," he said when he called everywhere, "um."
"I wonder what I've done," I thought to myself. "I don't believe he likes my chest."
Without a word he got out his stethoscope and began to listen to me. As luck would have it, he struck something interesting almost at once, and for what seemed hours he stood there listening and listening to it. But it was boring for me, because I really had very little to do. I could have bitten him in the neck with some ease ... or I might have licked his ear. Beyond that, nothing seemed to offer.
I moistened my lips and spoke.