"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 had 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.
"Am I dying?" I asked in a broken voice.
"Don't talk," he said. "Just breathe naturally."
"I am dying," I thought, "and he is hiding it from me." It was a terrible reflection.
"Um," he said and moved on.
By and by he went and listened behind my back. It is very bad form to listen behind a person's back. I did not tell him so, however. I wanted him to like me.