The Last Gentleman

defections.
    â€œBarrett,” said Sutter as cheerfully as ever, craning his neck to keep track of the new guest, “if you know anything at all— and, what with your peculiar gifts, you know a good deal more than that—you ought to know why not.”
    â€œI don’t,” said the engineer, at a total loss. He had lost his intuition!
    â€œIf I do outlive Jamie,” said Sutter, putting on his Curlee jacket (double breasted!), “it will not be by more than two hours. What in Christ’s name do you think I’m doing out here? Do you think I’m staying? Do you think I’m going back?”
    The engineer opened his mouth but said nothing. For the first time in his life he was astonished.
    â€œYou won’t join me, Barrett?”
    â€œWhat? No. No, thanks.”
    Sutter nodded cheerfully, dropped the pistol in the side pocket of the jacket, and hurried down the path after the last of the dudes.
    Perhaps this moment more than any other, the moment of his first astonishment, marked the beginning for the engineer of what is called a normal life. From that time forward it was possible to meet him and after a few minutes form a clear notion of what sort of fellow he was and how he would spend the rest of his life.
    11 .
    The pleasant little brunette was coming out of Jamie’s room when he turned the corner. He smiled at her and experienced a pang of pleasure when she veered and he saw she meant to stop him. But she was not smiling, and instead of speaking she held out a thermometer. He couldn’t see for looking, save only that the red line came dizzyingly near the top.
    â€œIs he conscious?” he asked her.
    â€œIf you want to call it that. He’s delirious.”
    â€œDo you think you should—”
    â€œI’ve already notified Dr. Bice.”
    â€œHow is his pulse?”
    â€œOne-thirty, but regular.”
    â€œHe’s not, ah, fibrillating?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWould you come back later, that is, from time to time when you can—as often as you can, in fact, to take his pulse.”
    Now she did smile. “Why, yes.”
    One look at Jamie and he went for the phone. The youth’s face was turned to the window. His dusty dead friable hair lay on the pillow as if it had been discarded, a hank.
    As he got change from the cashier—he wouldn’t dare reverse the charges to Val—he began to grieve. It was the shame of it, the bare-faced embarrassment of getting worse and dying which took him by surprise and caught his breath in his throat. How is this matter to be set right? Were there no officials to deal with, the shame of dying, to make suitable recompense? It was like getting badly beat in a fight. To lose. Oh, to lose so badly. Oh, you bastards living and well and me dying, and where is the right of that? Oh, for the bitter shame of it.
    At last the circuits clicked open into the frying frazzling silence of Alabama. He fancied he could hear the creak of the cancerous pines.
    â€œHello,” he cried after a wait. “Hello!”
    â€œHello,” came a voice as faint and faraway as 1901.
    â€œWho is this?”
    â€œThis here Axel.” It sounded like a child standing a good two feet below a wall phone.
    â€œAxel, let me speak to Sister Johnette Mary Vianney.”
    â€œWho?”
    He repeated it.
    â€œWho dat?”
    â€œSister—”
    â€œSister Viney?”
    â€œYes, Sister Viney.”
    â€œYes suh, she here.”
    â€œWell, go get her, Axel.”
    â€œYes suh.”
    The ancient Alabama silence fried away in his ear. His foot went to sleep. Twice he had to stoke the box with quarters. That black cretin Axel—
    â€œHello.”
    He gave a start. He had almost forgotten where he was. “Hello, is this Val? That is, Sister—”
    â€œThis is Val.”
    â€œVal, this is—” Christ, who? “—Will Barrett.”
    â€œYes?” The same calculated buzzing non-surprise—he felt a familiar spasm of irritation.
    â€œI, ah—Jamie asked me to call you.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œIt’s about a book. A book about entropy. Actually, that is not the real reason I’m—”
    â€œEntropy,” she repeated.
    â€œJamie said you promised to send him a book.”
    â€œHow is Jamie?”
    â€œHe asked me—”
    â€œNever mind about the book. How is he?”
    â€œHe is very sick.”
    â€œIs he