The Last Gentleman

was a protocol here, a way of speaking-in-the-hall which the resident and priest were onto and he, the engineer, was not. The question did not pass muster, for the resident turned to the priest.
    â€œDo you know what that joker told me last night?” (This is the way we speak.) “I always horse around with him. I wanted to take his temperature and I asked him what he wanted me to do, meaning which did he prefer, rectal or oral. So he says to me: Bice, you know what you can do with it. Oh, you can’t make a nickel on him,” he said, trying the engineer again (Now do you see? This is the way death itself can be gotten past).
    The priest hung fire, vague and fond, until he saw the resident had finished. “Now, ah,” he said, touching the engineer’s elbow with just the hint of interrogatory pressure, as if he meant to ask the time. But the touch was skillful. The engineer found himself guided into the solarium.
    â€œLet me see if I understand you,” said the priest, putting his head down and taking hold of a water pipe in his thick freckled hand. He watched intently as his perfect thumbnail creased a blister of paint. “This young man you say has never been baptized, and though he is unconscious now and perhaps will not regain consciousness, you have reason to believe he desires baptism?”
    â€œNo sir. His sister desires the baptism.”
    â€œBut he has a Catholic background?”
    â€œIf you mean Roman Catholic, no. I’m an Episcopalian,” said the engineer stiffly. Where in the world did these ready-made polemics come from? Never in his entire lifetime had he given such matters a single thought and now all at once he was a stout Anglican, a defender of the faith.
    â€œOf course, of course. And the young man in there, is he also from a Protestant, that is, an Episcopal background?”
    â€œNo sir. His background was originally Baptist, though his family later became Episcopalian—which accounts for the delay.” The engineer, who could not quite remember the explanation, fell silent. “Delay in baptism, that is,” he added after a moment.
    The priest examined another blister on the water pipe. “I don’t quite see why I have been summoned,” he said softly. “Perhaps you’d better call the Protestant chaplain.”
    â€œOh, no, sir,” said the engineer hastily, breaking out in a sweat lest the priest leave and he, the engineer, should have to go careening around the walls again. “Jamie professed no faith, so it is all the same which of you ministers, ah, ministers to him.” For some reason he laughed nervously. He didn’t want this fellow to get away—for one thing, he liked it that the other didn’t intone in a religious voice. He was more like a baseball umpire in his serviceable serge, which was swelled out by his muscular body. “As I told you, his sister, who is a nun, made me promise to send for you. She is on her way out here. She is a religious of a modern type. Her habit is short, to about here.” Then, realizing that he was not helping his case, he added nervously: “I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t found her own order. She is doing wonderful work among the Negroes. Aren’t foundresses quite often saints?” He groaned.
    â€œI see,” said the priest, and actually stole a glance at the other to see, as the engineer clearly perceived, whether he was quite mad. But the engineer was past minding, as long as the priest got on with it. Evidently this was an unusual case. The priest tried again.
    â€œNow you. Are you a friend of the family?”
    â€œYes, a close friend and traveling companion of the patient.”
    â€œAnd the other gentleman—he is the patient’s brother?”
    â€œSutter? Is he here?” For the second time in his life the engineer was astonished.
    â€œThere is a visitor with the patient who I gather, from his conversation with Dr. Bice, is a doctor.”
    â€œThat must be Sutter.”
    â€œThe only thing is, I don’t yet quite understand why it is you and not he who is taking the initiative here.”
    â€œHe was not here when Jamie had his attack. But he told me—he must have just come.”
    The priest took off his glasses, exposing naked eyes and a naked nosebridge, and carefully polished the lenses with a clean handkerchief. Making a bracket of his hand, he put the glasses back on,