"I think I do," said Letzmiller, nodding slowly. "Now, just what does that have to do with your operation?"
"Doctor—" Lee had to stop, for the patchwork quilt of blank spaces was dancing in his head. The helplessness went away, slowly, like smoke drifting from a fire. As his mind cleared, he realized that he didn't know why he was being interviewed by this doctor.
"Anything wrong?" Dr. Letzmiller asked.
Lee knew he wasn't being too coherent, jumping about with the conversation this way, but he asked the question, anyway. "Doc, why am I seeing you?"
"You haven't guessed?"
"No."
The doctor paused to light a half-gone cigar. "My job here at Merkins Replacive is to deal with just such fears as you have expressed. I'm an M.D. and a psychologist, and"—Letzmiller smiled to himself—"a kind of historian."
"Historian?"
"Well, you see I was supposed to give you the regular formal lecture on the history of replacive surgery when you first came in. Like to hear it?"
Lee nodded, so Letzmiller continued. "Replacive surgery is actually quite old. Old as medicine itself, I suppose. Very early attempts at dentures were tried, though with little success. And, of course, peg legs and hooks for persons who had lost their hands might be called replacive surgery, though they were very crude. Later on came more refined dentures, artificial limbs, corrective lenses, skull plates, hearing aids, plastic or cosmetic surgery, blood transfusions, all types of skin grafts, et cetera.