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?”

“Well, not so very often, as the real golf-bug or caddie’s worm would measure the thing—­say, on an average of once a week in the golfing season.  But I take so many swings at the ball before hitting it that I figure I get more exercise out of the game than do those who play oftener but take only about one wallop at the pill in driving off.  And when I drive into the deep grass, as is my wont, my work with the niblick would make you think of somebody bailing out a sinking boat.  My bunker exercises are frequently what you might call violent.  And in the fall of the year I do a lot of tramping about in the woods with a gun.  I might add that on a hunting trip I can walk many a skinny person into a state of total exhaustion.”  I stated this last pridefully.

“All right for that, then,” he said.  “We’ll concede that you get an abundance of exercise.  Then there is another thing you should do, and of the two this is by far the more essential—­you should go on a diet.”

Right there I turned mentally rebellious.  I wanted to reduce my bulk, but I did not want to reduce my provender.  I offered counter-arguments in defense.  I pointed but that for perhaps five years past my weight practically had been stationary.  Also I called attention to the fact that I no longer ate so heavily as once I had.  Not that I wished actually to decry my appetite.  It had been a good friend to me and not for worlds would I slander it.  I have a sincere conviction that age cannot wither nor custom stale my infinite gastric juices.  Never, I trust, will there come a time when I shan’t relish my victuals or when I’ll feel disinclined to chase the last fugitive bite around and around the plate until I overtake it.  But I presented the claim, which was quite true, that I was not the consumer, measured by volume, I once had been.  Perhaps my freighterage spaces, with passing years, had grown less expansive or less accommodating or something.