ast?"

"Uh--yes, occasionally, I--" Wheatley looked worried and rubbed his toe
on the chair leg.

"You know that fifty-five is a dangerous age," said the doctor gravely.
"Do you have a cough? Heartburn after dinner? Prop up on pillows at
night? Just as I thought! And no checkup for ten years!" He sighed
again.

"I suppose I should have seen to it," Wheatley admitted. "But you see,
it's just that my toe--"

"My dear fellow! Your toe is _part_ of you. It doesn't just exist down
there all by itself. If your _toe_ hurts, there must be a _reason_."

Wheatley looked more worried than ever. "There must? I thought--perhaps
you could just give me a little something--"

"To stop the pain?" The doctor looked shocked. "Well, of course I could
_do_ that, but that's not getting at the root of the trouble, is it?
That's just treating symptoms. Medieval quackery. Medicine has advanced
a long way since your last checkup, my friend. And even treatment has
its dangers. Did you know that more people died last year of _aspirin_
poisoning than of _cyanide_ poisoning?"

Wheatley wiped his forehead. "I--dear me! I never realized--"

"We have to _think_ about those things," said the doctor. "Now, the
problem here is to find out _why_ you have the pain in your toe. It
could be inflammatory. Maybe a tumor. Perhaps it could be, uh,
functional ... or maybe vascular!"

"Perhaps you could take my blood pressure, or something," Wheatley
offered.

"Well, of course I _could_. But that isn't really my field, you know. It
wouldn't really _mean_ anything, if I did it. But there's nothing to
worry about. We have a fine Hypertensive man at the Diagnostic Clinic."
The doctor checked the appointment book on his desk. "Now, if we could
see you there next Monday morning at nine--"

* * * * *

"Very interesting X rays," said the young doctor with the red hair.
"_Very_ interesting. See this shadow in the duodenal cap? See the
prolonged emptying time? And I've never seen such beautiful
pylorospasm!"

"This is my toe?" asked Wheatley, edging toward the doctors. It seemed
he had been waiting for a very long time.

"Toe! Oh, no," said the red-headed doctor. "No, that's the Orthopedic
Radiologist's job. I'm a Gastro-Intestinal man, myself. Upper. Dr.
Schultz here is Lower." The red-headed doctor turned back to his
consultation with Dr. Schultz. Mr. Wheatley rubbed his toe and waited.

Presently another doctor came by.