The Last Gentleman

him.”
    â€œHim?” The engineer suddenly feared to turn around.
    Sutter was nodding to the wall. There hung yet another medical picture, this of The Old Arab Physician. The engineer had not seen it because his peephole was some four inches below the frame. Moving closer, he noticed that the Arab, who was ministering to some urchins with phials and flasks, was badly shot up. Only then did it come over him that his peephole was an outlying miss in the pattern of bullet holes.
    â€œWhy him?” asked the engineer, who characteristically, having narrowly escaped being shot, dispatched like Polonius behind the arras, had become quite calm.
    â€œDon’t you know who that is?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€˜That’s Abou Ben Adhem.”
    The engineer shook his head impatiently. “Now that I’m here I’d like to ask you—”
    â€œSee the poem? There in a few short, badly written lines is compressed the sum and total of all the meretricious bullshit of the Western world. And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest Why did it lead all the rest?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said the engineer. His eyes were fixed vacantly on the dismantled gun barrel. The fruity steel smell of Hoppe’s gun oil put him in mind of something, but he couldn’t think what.
    â€œThere it is,” said Sutter, loading the clip, “the entire melancholy procession of disasters. First God; then a man who is extremely pleased with himself for serving man for man’s sake and leaving God out of it; then in the end God himself turned into a capricious sentimental Jean Hersholt or perhaps Judge Lee Cobb who is at first outraged by Abou’s effrontery and then thinks better of it: by heaven, says he, here is a stout fellow when you come to think of it to serve his fellow man with no thanks to me, and so God swallows his pride and packs off the angel to give Abou the good news—the new gospel. Do you know who did the West in?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt wasn’t Marx or immorality or the Communists or the atheists or any of those fellows. It was Leigh Hunt.”
    â€œWho?” repeated the engineer absently, eyes glued forever to the Colt Woodsman.
    â€œIf I were a Christian, I shouldn’t hesitate to identify the Anti-Christ. Leigh Hunt.”
    â€œLeigh Hunt,” said the engineer, rubbing his eyes.
    â€œI’m glad you came down with Jimmy,” said Sutter. “Come sit over here.”
    â€œYes sir.” Still not quite able to rouse himself, he allowed Sutter to lead him to the wagonwheel chair. But before he could sit down, Sutter turned him into the light from the window.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with you?”
    â€œI feel all right now. I was quite nervous a few minutes ago. I’ve had a nervous condition for some time.” He told Sutter about his amnesia.
    â€œI know. Jimmy told me. Are you going into a fugue now?”
    â€œI don’t know. I thought perhaps that you—”
    â€œMe? Oh no. I haven’t practiced medicine for years. I’m a pathologist I study the lesions of the dead.”
    â€œI know that,” said the engineer, sitting down wearily. “But I have reason to believe you can help me.”
    â€œWhat reason?”
    â€œI can tell when somebody knows something I don’t know.”
    â€œYou think I know something?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHow can you tell?”
    â€œI don’t know how but I can. I had an analyst for five years and he was very good, but he didn’t know anything I didn’t know.”
    Sutter laughed. “Did you tell him that?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou should have. He could have done a better job.”
    â€œI’m asking you.”
    â€œI can’t practice. I’m not insured.”
    â€œInsured?”
    â€˜The insurance company cancelled my liability. You can’t practice without it.”
    â€œI’m not asking you to practice. I only want to know what you know.”
    But Sutter only shrugged and turned back to the Colt.
    â€œWhy did they cancel your insurance?” the engineer asked desperately. There was something he wanted to ask but he couldn’t hit on the right question.
    â€œI got the idea of putting well people in the hospital and sending the truly sick home.”
    â€œWhy did you do that?” asked the engineer, smiling slightly. He was not yet certain when the other was joking.
    Again