Dr. Quink looked at him for a few moments, but no explanatory statement was forthcoming. Dr. Quink removed his eyeglasses, opened his left drawer two from the top, removed a white wiper, and wiped his glasses carefully. Mr. Fairfield waited patiently. Dr. Quink replaced the glasses. He leaned forward across the desk.
"Mr. Fairfield," he said, "this may come as some shock to you, but I wasn't born this year either."
"You don't understand," Mr. Fairfield wailed. "Oh, I just knew I shouldn't have come. When I say I wasn't born—"
He stopped, at a loss to explain. He wrung his hat in his hands until it was crumpled probably beyond repair. Then he jumped up, pushed it onto his head, and quickly walked out of the office. As his back disappeared from the doorway Margaret's head poked up in its place. She looked quite startled.
"It's all right, Margaret," Victor Quink said. "He was just a bit upset. You get all kinds in here. This one claimed there's something abnormal with his wife. Better leave an hour free tomorrow. He'll come back."
But he didn't.
He didn't come back during the following three weeks, then one afternoon Margaret ushered him through the doorway. He walked to the chair before the desk, looking neither at the doctor nor to the right nor left, and sat down, holding his hat in his hands.
"My wife believes she's just," he waved his hat vaguely toward the shielded window, "just like everybody else here."
"And isn't she?" Doctor Quink queried, with the patience due his profession.