I would call upon them in the role of a friend rather than avowedly as a prospective patient, and take them into my confidence, as it were, by degrees.

Somewhere in the back part of my brain I nursed a persistent fear that my complaints might be diagnosed as symptoms of that incurable malady known as being 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.