“Well, maybe. I hope you’re right. Anyway, I’m going to call him up and find out what the oculist said.”
Events, however, proved that unnecessary, for when they turned into the Adams Building there was Buster leaning against the counter in conversation with the sprightly Mr. Chester Young.
“I was waiting for you, Joe,” he announced. “Thought you’d like to know you were dead right yesterday. I went to the doctor man this afternoon and he says I’ve got my—my——Oh, thunder, I’ve forgotten it!”
“Myopia?”
“That’s it! He says I’m so blamed near-sighted that’s it’s a wonder I can blow my nose! But it isn’t cataracts, anyway. Say, honest, Joe, I was scared blue last night. I told my mother what you’d said and she was certain sure I had cataracts!”
“I’m glad you haven’t. What’s the oculist going to do about it?”
“He says he can cure me in a few months. I have to go every day for a while and look through a sort of machine he has. And I may have to wear glasses, too. And”—and by this time Buster’s cheerfulness was ebbing fast—“he says I can’t play ball any more for a while. Isn’t that the limit?”
“Too bad, Buster. But if he can cure the trouble——”
“He says he can. Says when you catch them young, these myopias, you can chase ’em out of the system, or words like that. I suppose I oughtn’t to kick, because it might have been a heap worse, but it’s hard having to give up playing baseball.”
“No use troubling about that,” said Jack, who had joined them. “You couldn’t play anyhow, Buster, until you got your eyes fixed up right. Much better give it up this spring and go back to it next.”