— Mister Duncan please! I, I just purchased those newspapers for you in the admittedly desperate hope that reading them to yourself might provide you with sufficient diversion to permit…
— Thanks that’s just what I want to do what do I owe you.
— Nothing, only a brief period of si…
— I just wanted to ask you to reach across him in that night table there and hand me the bedpan.
— I, yes. Yes. Mister Bast? Under the circumstances…
— Not leaving are you Cohen?
— I think so yes I, I should get downtown for another probably equally futile here you are Mister Duncan, yes perhaps when I return tomorrow one of you will be discharged one of you, either one of you it almost ceases to matter…
— Wait do you want to take this story about this wetback with the five dollar Cadillac I’ll tear it out for you, talking about wills and executors what this dumb millionaire did he made his wife executor so when he left the proceeds of this yacht and this Cadillac to some chip…
— No no thank you all the same Mister Duncan the Corpus Juris is filled with such follies goodnight, goodnight Mister Bast I trust…
— Thank you for the pencil Mister Coen.
— Cohen? Bring him some tomorrow sharp ones, he wants fifty sharp ones getting on this thing it’s like riding a midget’s surfboard, there. Bast? listen to this one, Davenport Iowa. The wife of a wealthy East Coast publishing executive who disappeared from her fashionable Scarsdale New York home last Christmas eve was discovered here today working as a waitress in a coffeeshop in order to help her husband out of the severe financial difficulties she was convinced had overtaken him, which she believed he feared to confide even to her how do you like that. Reached at Boca Raton where he is attending a publishing convention, the six figure a year executive good naturedly characterized as cigar money his wife’s savings of nine hundred sixteen dollars and eleven cents in small bills and coins, discovered by chance when fire struck the four dollar a week room here in which she has no privacy in this place at all what do you want.
— You’re Mister Duncan? You were to call the office about your insurance this health plan, is it all you have?
— What’s wrong with it, I got it through those same son of a…
— It’s very interesting, we’ve never seen one like it but it doesn’t seem to cover you till you enter the nursing home.
— What makes you think I’m entering a nursing home.
— If you want to get your coverage page eleven, twelve it’s down here miscellaneous provisions wait I brought a magnifying glass, approved nursing home care including specified prescription drugs and prosthetic devices in accordance with article sixteen paragraph twenty g, your departure by private hearse, plastic casket and complete service by the denomination of your choice with free plastic flower spray and your own personalized plot four by eight feet overlooking the picturesque leisure village of Union…
— Wait hand me that newspaper no, under there that one those son of a, look here, Eldercare bill passes they passed this Eldercare bill that should…
— But your age according to our…
— Then I’ll just sit here till I qualify how do you like that, Waddles? Get this woman out of here she’s upsetting me, and get me off this thing, what’s that. Jello?
— It’s your supper.
— It’s Jello.
— Mister Bast? Let’s just move all these papers and put your tray here, you have been busy today haven’t you.
