He had to recall that his invalidism, not his checker prowess, was in question.

He regained his presence of mind; he coughed feebly, reaching a hand tenderly back to a point between his shoulder blades.
"Not one of my real bad days, Winona.

I can't really say I've suffered.
Stuff that other cushion in back of me, will you?
I got a new pain kind of in this left shoulder--neuralgia, mebbe.

But my sciatica ain't troubled me--not too much." Winona adjusted the cushion.
"You're so patient, father!" "I try to be, Winona," which was simple truth.
A sufferer for years, debarred by obscure ailments from active participation in our industrial strife, the judge, often for days at a time, would not complain unless pressed to--quite as if he had forgotten his pains.

The best doctors disagreed about his case, none of them able to say precisely what his maladies were.