The Last Gentleman

sell Sweden short. (I notice that her language has taken on the deplorable and lapsed slanginess found in many religious, priests and nuns, and in Our Sunday Visitor. ) The next great saint must come from Sweden, etc. It is only from desolation of total transcendence of self and total descent of world immanence that a man can come who can recover himself and world under God, etc. Give me suicidal Swede, says she, over Alabama Christian any day, etc.
    I say: Very good, very good talk, but it is after all only that, that is the kind of talk we have between us.
    The bar turned in his head, synapses gave way, and he slept ten hours dreamlessly and without spansules.
    Still no sign of the Trav-L-Aire the next morning, but after a great steaming breakfast of brains and eggs and apple rings served in front of the Zenith. (Captain Kangaroo: Uncle Fannin and Merriam cackled like maniacs at the doings of Captain K. and Mr. Greenjeans, and the engineer wondered, how is it that uncle and servant, who were solid 3-D persons, true denizens of this misty Natchez Trace country, should be transported by these sad gags from Madison Avenue? But they were transported. They were merry as could be, and he, the engineer, guessed that was all right: more power to Captain K.)
    After he had transacted his oil-lease business with his uncle, the telephone rang. It was the deputy sheriff in Shut Off. It seemed a little “trailer” had been stolen by a bunch of niggers and outside agitators and that papers and books in the name of Williston Bibb Barrett had been found therein. Did Mr. Fannin know anything about it? If he did and if it was his property or his kin’s, he might reclaim the same by coming down to Shut Off and picking it up.
    The uncle held the phone and told his nephew.
    â€œWhat happened to the, ah, Negroes and the outside agitators?” asked the latter calmly.
    Nothing, it seemed. They were there, at this moment, in Shut Off. It needed but a word from Mr. Fannin to give the lie to their crazy story that they had borrowed the trailer from his kinsman and the lot of them would be thrown in jail, if not into the dungeon at Fort Ste. Marie.
    â€œThe dungeon. So that’s it,” said the nephew, relieved despite himself. “And what if the story is confirmed?” he asked his uncle.
    Then they’d be packed off in twenty minutes on the next bus to Memphis.
    â€œConfirm the story,” said the nephew. “And tell him I’ll be there in an hour to pick up my camper.” He wanted his friends free, clear of danger, but free and clear of him too, gone, by the time he reached Shut Off.
    After bidding his uncle and Merriam farewell—who were only waiting for him to leave to set off with the dogs in the De Soto—he struck out for the old landing, where he retrieved his boat and drifted a mile or so to the meadows, which presently separated the river from Shut Off. So it came to be called Shut Off: many years ago one of the meanderings of the river had jumped the neck of a peninsula and shut the landing off from the river.
    5 .
    The boy and the man ate breakfast in the dining car Savannah. The waiter braced his thigh against the table while he laid the pitted nickel-silver knives and forks. The water in the heavy glass carafe moved up and down without leaving a drop, as if water and glass were quits through usage.
    A man came down the aisle and stood talking to his father, folding and unfolding his morning paper.
    â€œIt’s a bitter thing, Ed. Bitter as gar broth.”
    â€œI know it is, Oscar. Son, I want you to meet Senator Oscar Underwood. Oscar, this is my son Bill.”
    He arose to shake hands and then did not know whether to stand or sit.
    â€œBill,” the senator told him, “when you grow up, decide what you want to do according to your lights. Then do it. That’s all there is to it.”
    â€œYes sir,” he said, feeling confident he could do that.
    â€œSenator Underwood did just that, son, and at great cost to himself,” said his father.
    â€œYes sir.”
    He awoke, remembering what Senator Underwood looked like, even the vein on his hand which jumped back and forth across a tendon when he folded and unfolded the fresh newspaper.
    Dear God, he thought, pacing his five-foot aisle, I’m slipping again. I can’t have met Senator Underwood, or could I? Was it I and my father or he and his father? How do I know what he looked like? What did