Speaking of Operations | Page 7

I was vaguely wondering whether Doctor Z buried his dead
on the premises or had them removed by a secret passageway in the
rear, when a young woman in a nurse's costume tapped me on the
shoulder from behind.
I jumped. She hid a compassionate smile with her hand and told me
that the doctor would see me now.
As I rose to follow her--still clinging with the drowning man's grip of
desperation to my hat and my umbrella--I was astonished to note by a
glance at the calendar on the wall that this was still the present date. I
thought it would be Thursday of next week at the very least.

Doctor Z also wore whiskers, carefully pointed up by an expert hedge
trimmer. He sat at his desk, surrounded by freewill offerings from
grateful patients and by glass cases containing other things he had
taken away from them when they were not in a condition to object. I
had expected, after all the preliminary ceremonies and delays, that we
should have a long skance together. Not so; not at all. The modern
expert in surgery charges as much for remembering your name between
visits as the family doctor used to expect for staying up all night with
you, but he does not waste any time when you are in his presence.
I was about to find that out. And a little later on I was to find out a lot
of other things; in fact, that whole week was of immense educational
value to me.
I presume it was because he stood high in his profession, and was
almost constantly engaged in going into the best society that Doctor Z
did not appear to be the least bit excited over my having picked him out
to look into me. In the most perfunctory manner he shook the hand that
has shaken the hands of Jess Willard, George M. Cohan and Henry
Ford, and bade me be seated in a chair which was drawn up in a strong
light, where he might gaze directly at me as we conversed and so get
the full values of the composition. But if I was a treat for him to look at
he concealed his feelings very effectually.
He certainly had his emotions under splendid control. But then, of
course, you must remember that he probably had traveled about
extensively and was used to sight-seeing.
From this point on everything passed off in a most businesslike manner.
He reached into a filing cabinet and took out an exhibit, which I
recognized as the same one his secretary had filled out in the early part
of the century. So I was already in the card-index class. Then briefly he
looked over the manifest that Doctor X had sent him. It may not have
been a manifest--it may have been an invoice or a bill of lading.
Anyhow I was in the assignee's hands. I could only hope it would not
eventually become necessary to call in a receiver. Then he spoke:
"Yes, yes-yes," he said; "yes-yes-yes! Operation required. Small

matter--hum, hum! Let's see--this is Tuesday? Quite so. Do it Friday!
Friday at"--he glanced toward a scribbled pad of engagement dates at
his elbow--"Friday at seven A. M. No, make it seven-fifteen. Have
important tumor case at seven. St. Germicide's Hospital. You know the
place--up on Umpty-umph Street. Go' day! Miss Whoziz, call next
visitor."
And before I realized that practically the whole affair had been settled I
was outside the consultation-room in a small private hall, and the
secretary was telling me further details would be conveyed to me by
mail. I went home in a dazed state. For the first time I was beginning to
learn something about an industry in which heretofore I had never been
interested. Especially was I struck by the difference now revealed to me
in the preliminary stages of the surgeons' business as compared with
their fellow experts in the allied cutting trades--tailors, for instance, not
to mention barbers. Every barber, you know, used to be a surgeon, only
he spelled it chirurgeon. Since then the two professions have drifted far
apart. Even a half-witted barber--the kind who always has the first chair
as you come into the shop--can easily spend ten minutes of your time
thinking of things he thinks you should have and mentioning them to
you one by one, whereas any good, live surgeon knows what you have
almost instantly.
As for the tailor--consider how wearisome are his methods when you
parallel them alongside the tremendous advances in this direction made
by the surgeon--how cumbersome and old-fashioned and tedious! Why,
an experienced surgeon has you all apart in half the time the tailor takes
up in deciding whether the vest shall fasten with five buttons or