I found my magazine.
At last
"Mr. Wylie."
It was still a different doctor—a plump little man wearing glasses which took the radiance of his floor lamps as a shield so I could not see his eyes. His neutral hair was cut as short and even as fur.
"I'm glad to make your acquaintance," he said. "Have a cigarette. I've read your books."
I took his cigarette. Inauspicious token.
The condemned man smoked a hearty breakfast.
"Not all of us physicians deserve such a keel-hauling." He laughed at the way I'd rubbed the nose of his trade in its sins and pomposities. This was to show me his nose was immaculate.
"Sure."
He lighted his own and smoked the way doctors often do—like schoolkids with Cubebs.