“Some of them were, sir. Terribly angry, sir. But not too many of them. Most of them were happy and wanted to tell you what a great thing you’d done. But I told them you were tired and I could not waken you.”
“Great thing?” said the senator. “What great thing have I done?”
“Why, sir, giving up life continuation. One man said to tell you it was the greatest example of moral courage the world had ever known. He said all the common people would bless you for it. Those were his very words. He was very solemn, sir.”
The senator swung his feet to the floor, sat on the edge of the bed, scratching at his ribs.
It was strange, he told himself, how a thing would turn out sometimes. A heel at bedtime and a hero in the morning.
“Don’t you see, sir,” said Otto, “you have made yourself one of the common people, one of the short-lived people. No one has ever done a thing like that before.”
“I was one of the common people,” said the senator, “long before I wrote that statement. And I didn’t make myself one of them. I was forced to become one of them, much against my will.”
But Otto, in his excitement, didn’t seem to hear.
He rattled on: “The newspapers are full of it, sir. It’s the biggest news in years. The political writers are chuckling over it. They’re calling it the smartest political move that was ever pulled. They say that before you made the announcement you didn’t have a chance of being re-elected senator and now, they say, you can be elected president if you just say the word.”
The senator sighed. “Otto,” he said, “please hand me my pants. It is cold in here.”