“Intellectually I know that,” Morley said.

Together, they labored for a time in silence, carrying box after box from the Morbid Chicken to the better noser. Continually Morley tried to think of something to say, but he could not. His mind, because of his fright, had become dim; the fires of his quick intellect, in which he had so much faith, had almost flickered off.

“Have you ever thought of getting psychiatric help?” the Walker asked him at last.

“No,” he said.

“Let’s pause a moment and rest. So we can talk a little.”

Morley said, “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to know anything; I don’t want to hear anything.” He heard his voice bleat out in its weakness, steeped in its paucity of knowledge. The bleat of foolishness, of the greatest amount of insanity of which he was capable. He knew this, heard it and recognized it, and still he clung to it; he continued on. “I know I’m not perfect,” he said. “But I can’t change. I’m satisfied.”

“Your failure to examine the Morbid Chicken.”

“Mary made a good point; usually my luck is good.”

“She would have died, too.”

“Tell her that.” Don’t tell me, he thought. Please, don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to know!

The Walker regarded him for a moment. “Is there anything,” it said at last, “that you want to say to me?”

“I’m grateful, damn grateful. For your appearance.”

“Many times during the past years you’ve thought to yourself what you would say to me if you met me again. Many things passed through your mind.”

“I—forget,” he said, huskily.

“May I bless you?”

“Sure,” he said, his voice still husky. And almost inaudible. “But why? What have I done?”

“I am proud of you, that’s all.”

“But why?” He did not understand; the censure which he had been waiting for had not arrived.

The Walker said, “Once years ago you had a tomcat whom you loved. He was greedy and mendacious and yet you loved him. One day he died from bone fragments lodged in his stomach, the result of filching the remains of a dead Martian root-buzzard from a garbage pail. You were sad, but you still loved him. His essence, his appetite—all that made him up had driven him to his death. You would have paid a great deal to have him alive again, but you would have wanted him as he was, greedy and pushy, himself as you loved him, unchanged. Do you understand?”