The Last Gentleman

squirrel-gray Cadillac which was mean and low and twenty feet long. He hollered to the driver but she wouldn’t let him out. When at last she did stop and he asked them to wait until he could get his firkin from the trunk, they began to hoot again, positively rolling about on the seats. He had a six-block walk back to the motel.
    There was nobody in sight but a pair of listless slothlike children worming over the playground equipment. He had time to take a good look at the Trav-L-Aire. She was all she might be, a nice balance of truck heaviness, steel and stout below and cabined aluminum lightness above. She had just the faintest and lightest quilted look, her metal skin tucked down by rivets like an airplane wing. Vents and sockets and knobs made discreet excrescences, some faired against the wind, others propped out to scoop the wind. The step was down and the back door ajar and he had a peep inside: the coziest little caboose imaginable, somehow larger inside than out, yet all compact of shelf, bunk, galley, and sink.
    Now here surely is a good way to live nowadays, said he and sat down on the firkin: mobile yet at home, compacted and not linked up with the crumby carnival linkage of a trailer, in the world yet not of the world, sampling the particularities of place yet cabined off from the sadness of place, curtained away from the ghosts of Malvern Hill, peeping out at the doleful woods of Spotsylvania through the cheerful plexiglass of Sheboygan.
    â€œHullo!”
    It was Mr. Vaught, He had come out of his motel room, scratched his seat, shot his cuff, and, spying the engineer, hailed him over as if he were just the man he was looking for.
    â€œGot dog, man,” said the old man, cocking his head direfully. “So you thought better of it.”
    â€œThought better of what?”
    â€œYou decided to come after all.”
    â€œSir,” said the engineer, blinking. Was this the plan all along, that he was to meet them here?
    â€œYou want to see something fine?”
    â€œYes sir.”
    Mr. Vaught unlocked the trunk of the Cadillac and showed him a vast cargo of food, Quaker jams, Shaker jellies, Virginia hams. He began to give an account of each package.
    â€œExcuse me, sir,” said the engineer, interrupting him.
    â€œYace.”
    â€œExcuse me but I can’t help but think that explanations are in order. For my part I can say—”
    â€œThat’s all right,” cried the old man hastily. He was actually blushing. “I’m just tickled to death to have you aboard!”
    â€œThank you, sir. But I think we’d better clear this up.” He heard himself speak without consulting his memory. His voice had a memory of its own. “My understanding was yall were going to pick me up. I waited for three hours.”
    â€œNo,” cried the old man and coming close seized him under the armpit and took him aside. “Take this apple jelly.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œSon, look. If it was a question of money, why didn’t you say so? I’ll tell you this where I wouldn’t just as to say tell most folks: I got more damn money than I know what to do with and if I don’t give it to you the government’s going to get it anyway.”
    â€œMoney,” said the engineer, screwing up an eye.
    â€œRita said she asked you to come with us and you refused.”
    â€œNo sir,” he said, remembering. “What she asked was whether I wanted to be employed by her or—”
    â€œNaturally, when I didn’t hear from you to the contrary, I assumed you didn’t want the job.”
    â€œNo sir!”
    â€œSon, you know what we really thought? We thought you didn’t want to come with either one of us but that you would be nice enough tocome if we asked you, just to help us, and I wasn’t going to do that. Look,” cried the old man joyfully.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s better this way!”
    â€œHow is that, sir?”
    â€œNow we know where we stand. Now I believe you want to come with us.”
    â€œYes sir, that is true,” said the engineer dryly. “I desire now only to have the same assurance from you.”
    â€œWhat! Oh! By George,” said the other, shooting his cuff and calling on the high heavens. “If you’re not your daddy all over again.”
    â€œYes sir,” said the engineer gloomily, wondering if the old man was slipping away again like the white rabbit.