H.E. Bates Companion

A tale of a charlatan itinerant optician, one J.I. Vairpatana, and the farming couple who spend increasing amounts on worthless ointments for their daughter's sight. Bates depicts the girl's inclination to deny her worsening condition, and the self-deception as the father pays "for something else besides a cure. He bought prestige, importance, some essence of slight mystery, a thing to boast about." In The Spectator (January 7, 1938), The Flying Goat (1939), Thirty-One Selected Tales (1947).