ty.

"Ah!" said the medical man, and proceeded with his punching and
sounding. Medical science in those days was just reaching the beginnings
of precision. "You'd better go right away," said the medical man, "and
make the Euthanasia. The sooner the better."

Bindon gasped. He had been trying not to understand the technical
explanations and anticipations in which the medical man had indulged.

"I say!" he said. "But do you mean to say ... Your science ..."

"Nothing," said the medical man. "A few opiates. The thing is your own
doing, you know, to a certain extent."

"I was sorely tempted in my youth."

"It's not that so much. But you come of a bad stock. Even if you'd have
taken precautions you'd have had bad times to wind up with. The mistake
was getting born. The indiscretions of the parents. And you've shirked
exercise, and so forth."

"I had no one to advise me."

"Medical men are always willing."

"I was a spirited young fellow."

"We won't argue; the mischief's done now. You've lived. We can't start
you again. You ought never to have started at all. Frankly--the
Euthanasia!"

Bindon hated him in silence for a space. Every word of this brutal
expert jarred upon his refinements. He was so gross, so impermeable to
all the subtler issues of being. But it is no good picking a quarrel
with a doctor. "My religious beliefs," he said, "I don't approve of
suicide."

"You've been doing it all your life."

"Well, anyhow, I've come to take a serious view of life now."

"You're bound to, if you go on living. You'll hurt. But for practical
purposes it's late. However, if you mean to do that--perhaps I'd better
mix you a little something. You'll hurt a great deal. These little
twinges ..."

"Twinges!"

"Mere preliminary notices."

"How long can I go on? I mean, before I hurt--really."

"You'll get it hot soon. Perhaps three days."

Bindon tried to argue for an extension of time, and in the midst of his
pleading gasped, put his hand to his side. Suddenly the extraordinary
pathos of his life came to him clear and vivid. "It's hard," he said.
"It's infernally hard! I've been no man's enemy but my own. I've always
treated everybody quite fairly."

The medical man stared at him without any sympathy for some seconds. He
was reflecting how excellent it was that there were no more Bindons to
carry on that line of pathos. He felt quite optimistic. Then he turned
to his telephone and ordered up a prescription from