"Interesting," he said, and he gave up. There were papers on his desk. "Like to mull it over with you someday." He discarded two or three sheets. "I've got a report on you here somewhere." He found it, finally. "Negative." He glanced at me and chuckled. "Cobb, my associate, was fooled. Told me he was all but sure of carcinoma. The thing—" he read to himself—"is a rather rare lymphatic growth. But two or three mild doses of X-ray will obliterate it. You'll never be able to see the site. Cobb will give you the first treatment straight off. Only take a few minutes. Just hold your mouth open—and shed your troubles." He chuckled again. "Mighty glad to meet you, Wylie. Maybe, someday, you'd come up to Westchester and talk to a little group I'm a member of—"
I said I would, breaking my rule. And that was that.
It happens to millions. The frightful diagnosis, the aching interlude, the laboratory check, reprieve. Till next time. It is one of the you-knows.
Half an hour later I went down to the level of the street. The lobby of this particular medical building was a poorly lighted, sparsely furnished marble sepulcher and along it lay a track of corrugated rubber matting upon which were the coming and going footprints of us all. I sat on a stone bench.
Weakness was for a while my only sensation.
My thoughts ran feebly.
They had given it back to me.
I was getting used to the process.
I should exult—
deliver myself of some noble message, immediately.