I took a sneaking glance at my right side and was immediately made aware of the fact that all was well with me there, and that all my trouble had come from my ill-advised “wondering” whether that Midas omelet would bother me or not.

“These glasses are wonderful,” said I.

“They are a great help,” said AEsculapius.

“And do you always permit your patients to put them on?” I asked.

“Not always,” said he.  “Sometimes people really have something the matter with them.  More often, of course, they haven’t.  It would never do to let a really sick man see his condition.  If they are ill, I can see at once what is the matter by means of these spectacles, and can, of course, prescribe.  If they are not, there is no surer means of effecting a cure than putting these on the patient’s nose and letting him see for himself that he is all right.”

“They have all the quality of the X-ray light,” I suggested, turning my gaze upon an iron safe in the corner of the room, which immediately disclosed its contents.

“They are X-ray glasses,” said AEsculapius.  “In a good light you can see through anything with ’em on.  I have lenses of the same kind in my window, and when you came up I looked at you through the window-pane and saw at once that there was nothing the matter with you.”

“I wish our earthly doctors had glasses like these,” I ventured, taking them off, for truly I was beginning to fancy a strain.

“They have—­or at least they have something quite as good,” said AEsculapius.  “They are all my disciples, and in the best instances they can see through the average patient without them.  They have insight.  You don’t believe you deceive your physician, do you?”

“I have sometimes thought so,” said I, not realizing the trap the doctor was setting.

“How foolish!” he cried.  “Why should you wish to?”

I was covered with confusion.

“Never mind,” said AEsculapius, smiling pleasantly.  “You are only human and cannot help yourself.  It is your imagination leads you astray.  Half the time when you send for your physician there is nothing the matter with you.”

“He always prescribes,” I retorted.

“That is for your comfort, not his,” said AEsculapius, firmly.

“And sometimes they operate when it isn’t necessary,” I put in, persistently.

“True,” said AEsculapius.  “Very true.  Because if they didn’t, the patient would die of worry.”

“Humph!” said I, incredulous.  “I never knew that the operation for appendicitis was a mind cure.”

“It is—­frequently,” observed the doctor.  “There are more people, my friend, who have appendicitis on their minds than there are those who have it in their vermiforms.  Don’t forget that.”

It was a revelation, and, to tell the truth, it has been a revelation of comfort ever since.

“I fancy, doctor,” said I, after a pause, “that you are a Christian Scientist.  All troubles are fanciful and indicative of a perverse soul.”