My attention was drawn to the spots on my chest when I was in my bath, singing, if I remember rightly, the Toreador song from the opera Carmen. They were pink in colour, rather like the first faint flush of dawn, and I viewed them with concern. I am not a fussy man, but I do object to being freckled like a pard, as I once heard Jeeves describe it, a pard, I take it, being something in the order of one of those dogs beginning with d.
'Jeeves,' I said at the breakfast table, 'I've got spots on my chest.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Pink.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'I don't like them.'
'A very understandable prejudice, sir. Might I enquire if they itch?'
'Sort of.'
'I would not advocate scratching them.'
'I disagree with you. You have to take a firm line with spots. Remember what the poet said.'
'Sir?'
'The poet Ogden Nash. The poem he wrote defending the practice of scratching. Who was Barbara Frietchie, Jeeves?'
'A lady of some prominence in the American war between the States, sir.'
'A woman of strong character? One you could rely on?'
'So I have always understood, sir.'
'Well, here's what the poet Nash wrote. "I'm greatly attached to Barbara Frietchie. I'll bet she scratched when she was itchy." But I shall not be content with scratching. I shall place myself in the hands of a competent doctor.'