IT HAPPENS to millions.

They sit in doctors' offices trying to hide nervousness in the pages of magazines. Wondering what germs their predecessors have deposited in Life and Harper's Bazaar or Action Comics.

The nurse calls:

Mr. So-and-so. Mrs. So-and-so. Miss So-and-so.

They go in.

"Doctor," they say, "just lately I've begun to notice...."

They have begun to notice Death.

And now the doctor notices, too.

Millions of us, in this century, find out before angina curls us like insects in flame. Before the stone is lodged in its screaming cavity. Before the final, involuntary issue of bowel or bladder or foamy lungs.

It is one of the marvels of science.

"Tom," I said, for the doctor is an old friend, "lately I've noticed a feeling of fullness in my nasal passages. And this morning, before I flew down from the country, I looked at the back of my throat. Up behind the uvula. Something is—growing there."

"Let's take a squint."