forty-four years old, going, on forty-five. And I knew that much already without paying a physician twenty-five dollars for telling me so the first time and ten dollars for each time he told it to me over again.

   Rather shamefacedly, with a well-simulated air of casualness, I dropped in upon a physician who is a friend of mine and in whose judgment I have confidence; and then, after a two-day interval, I went to see a second physician of my acquaintance who, I believe, also thoroughly knows his trade. With both men I followed the same tactics—roundabout chatting on the topic of this or that, and finally an honest confession as to the real purpose of my visit. In both instances the results were practically identical. Each man manifested an almost morbid curiosity touching on my personal habits and bodily idiosyncrasies. Each asked me a lot of questions. Each went at me with X-ray machines and blood tests and chemical analysissies—if there isn't any such word I claim there should be—until my being was practically an open book to him and I had no secrets left at all.

   And the upshot of all this was that each of them told me that though organically I was as sound as a nut in fact much sounder than some of the nuts they knew professionally—I was carrying an overload of avoirdupois about with me. In other words, I was too fat for my own good. I was eating too much sweet stuff and entirely too much starch—especially starch. They agreed on this point emphatically. As well as I could gather, I was subjecting my interior to that highly shellacked gloss which is peculiar to the bosom of the old-fashioned full-dress or burying shirt upon its return from the steam laundry, when what my system really called for was the dull domestic finish.

   "Well, doc," I said upon hearing this for the second time in language which already had a familiar sound—"well, all that you say being true, what then?"

   "For one thing, more exercise."

   "But I take plenty of exercise now."

   "For example, what?"

   "For example, golf."

   "How often do you play golf?"

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