"My only trouble," I informed him, "is that I'm damned if I can remember anything that happened before April second of this year. That's been getting me close to trouble and I'd like to clear it up. I remember all sorts of things before then, but it's about another man."
"Hm!" Potter suddenly looked formidably medical. "That's what I call schizophrenia with a pretzel twist. We could keep you here and give you sedatives and baths and exercises and analysis, but it would be just the same if we left you alone. You've had some kind of shock causing a temporary occlusion of personality, and the best thing you can do is wait. Sooner or later there will be another shock and everything will come straight again. What do you think you remember from the blank period?"
"Damned if I know," I replied. "I think I sank a battleship or killed a President, or something."
Potter laughed. "That's just a variation of the good old Napoleon complex—which is an inferiority complex gone wild. You ought to take up a hobby, like expert book-binding or watch-repairing. That would give you a sense of power and you wouldn't feel the need for sinking ships. Ten to one, you can't even shoot a decent game of golf."
"I'm pretty good at poker," I defended myself.
"That's not power, Mr. Tompkins, that's just shrewdness. You have a profound sense of physical inadequacy. The record says you're married. Any children?"
I shook my head.
"That's it," Potter declared. "We had a case like that in Jung's clinic—a baker named Hermann Schultz, who insisted that he was the Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa. We were baffled for a while, since Schultz was married and had three children. Then we learned that his wife was the girl-friend of one of the Habsburg Archdukes and that poor Schultz was not the father of little Franz, Irma and Ernst. We solved it for him with his wife's help. She agreed to have another child. Of course, it was the Archduke's but Schultz never guessed. He ceased to believe that he was the Barbarossa and became a highly successful baker. What you ought to do, Mr. Tompkins, is to father a child and then you will forget all this nonsense about battleships and Presidents. Not so?"
I grinned at him knowingly. "There's much in what you say, Dr. Potter," I complimented him, "but what the hell can I do about it bottled up here in the Sanctuary? Just give me a clean mental bill of health—in case any of my partners try to pull a fast one—and I'll go home to my wife and give earnest consideration to your suggestion. After all, if that fails, I can always take up wood-carving. Or try another girl."
"There are one or two around here—" he began, then checked himself. "Well," he continued, "I can't say that I see anything really abnormal about you. Sitting here, talking with you, I would have noticed any psychopathic tendencies. We psychiatrists develop a sort of sixth sense for the abnormal. I couldn't prove it scientifically, but I am sure as Adam ate little green apples that there's nothing wrong with you that can't be cured by a drink, a kiss and a baby."